URIS LIBRARY 
 
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 ^'"mmmSM^"^ *" ^"* '"*"™ metaphy 
 
 3 1924 011 523 168 
 
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 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 924011 5231 68 
 
KANT'S PROLEGOMENA 
 
 TO ANY FUTURE METAPHYSICS 
 
 EDITED IN ENGLISH 
 
 DR. PAUL CARUS 
 
 THIRD EDITION 
 
 WITH AN ESSAY ON KANT'S PHILOSOPHY, AND 
 
 OTHER SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL 
 
 FOR THE STUDY OF KANT 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 1912 
 
TRANSLATION COPYRIGHTED 
 BY 
 
 The Open Court Publishing Co. 
 igo2. 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Professor 
 Stuart M. Brovm, Jr. 
 
 UNDERGRADUATE 
 
TRANSLA- 
 
 The Open C 
 
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. 
 
 "jy" ANT'S Prolegomena} although a small book, is indubitably 
 the most important of his writings. It furnishes us with a 
 key to his main work, The Critique of Pure Reason ; in fact, it 
 is an extract containing all the salient ideas of Kant's system. It 
 approaches the subject in the simplest and most direct way, and 
 is therefore best adapted as an introduction into his philosophy. 
 For this reason, The Open Court Publishing Company has deemed 
 it advisable to bring out a new edition of the work, keeping in 
 view its broader use as -a. preliminary survey and explanation of 
 Kant's philosophy in general. In order to make the book useful 
 for this broader purpose, the editor has not only stated his own 
 views concerning the problem underlying the Prolegomena (see 
 page 167 et seq.), but has also collected the most important ma- 
 terials which have reference to Kant's philosophy, or to the recep- 
 tion which was accorded to it in various quarters (see page 241 et 
 seq. ). The selections have not been made from a partisan stand- 
 point, but have been chosen with a view to characterising the atti- 
 tude of different minds, and to directing the student to the best 
 literature on the subject. 
 
 It is not without good reasons that the appearance of the 
 Critique of Pure Reason is regarded as the beginning of a new 
 era in the history of philosophy ; and so it seems that a compre- 
 hension of Kant's position, whether we accept or reject it, is indis- 
 pensable to the student of philosophy. It is not his solution which 
 
 1 Prolegomena means literally prefatory or introductory remarks. It is 
 the neuter plural of the present passive participle of irpoAe'-yetv, to speak he/ore^ 
 i.e., to make introductory remarks before beginning one's regular discourse. 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 makes the sage of Konigsberg the initiator of modern thought, but 
 his formulation of the problem. 
 
 The present translation is practically new, but it goes without 
 saying that the editor utilised the labors of his predecessors, among 
 whom Prof. John P. Mahaffy and John H. Bernard deserve special 
 credit. Richardson's translation of 1818 may be regarded as super- 
 seded and has not been consulted, but occasional reference has 
 been made to that of Prof. Ernest Belfort Bax. Considering the 
 diflSculties under which even these translators labored we must 
 recognise the fact that they did their work well, with painstaking 
 diligence, great love of the subject, and good judgment. The editor 
 of the present translation has the advantage of being to the manor 
 born ; moreover, he is pretty well versed in Kant's style ; and 
 wherever he differs from his predecessors in the interpretation of 
 a construction, he has deviated from them not without good rea- 
 sons. Nevertheless there are some passages which will still re- 
 main doubtful, though happily they are of little consequence. 
 
 As a curiosum in Richardson's translation Professor Mahaffy 
 mentions that the words widersinnig ge-wundene Schnecken, 
 which simply means "symmetric helices,"' are rendered by 
 "snails rolled up contrary to all sense " — a wording that is itself 
 contrary to all sense and makes the whole paragraph unintelli- 
 gible. We may add an instance of another mistake that misses 
 the mark. Kant employs in the Appendix a word that is no longer 
 used in German. He speaks of the Cento der Metafhysik as having 
 neue Laffen and einen verdnderten Zuschnitt. Mr. Bax trans- 
 lates Cento by "body," La^^en by "outgrowths," and Zuschnitt 
 by "figure." His mistake is perhaps not less excusable than 
 Richardson's ; it is certainly not less comical, and it also destroys 
 the sense, which in the present case is a very striking simile. 
 
 1 Mahaffy not incorrectly translates "spirals winding opposite ways," 
 and Mr, Bax follows him verbatim even to the repetition of the footnote. 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 Cento is a Latin word* derived from the Greek nhirpm),^ meaning 
 "a garment of many patches sewed together, " or, as we might 
 now say, "a crazy quilt." 
 
 * * • 
 In the hope that this book will prove useful, The Open Court 
 Publishing Company offers it as a help to the student of philosophy. 
 
 p. c. 
 
 IThe French centon is still ia use. 
 
 ZjcEi'Tpfoi', (z) one that hears the marks of the fcevrpoi', goad; a rogue, (2) a 
 patched cloth ; {3) any kind of patchwork, especially verses made up of scraps 
 from other authors. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Kant's Prolegomena 1-163 
 
 Essay on Kant's Philosophy by Dr. Paul Carus. (With Por- 
 traits of Kant and Garve) 167-240 
 
 Supplementary Materials for the Study of Kant's Lite and 
 Philosophy : 
 
 Introductory Note 243 
 
 Kant's Life and Writings. (After Windelband) 245 
 
 The Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of 
 
 Judgment. (After Weber) 250 
 
 Kant's Views on Religion. (After Schwegler) 258 
 
 Kant and Materialism. (After Lange) 261 
 
 Kant and Deism. (After Heinrich Heine.) With Fac- 
 simile of the Title-page of the Critique of Pure 
 
 Reason 264 
 
 The Kantian Philosophy. (After Arthur Schopenhauer) 279 
 Hostile Estimate of Kant by a Swedenborgian. (After 
 
 Theodore F. Wright) 283 
 
 Facsimile and Translation of a Letter of Kant to His 
 
 Brother 285 
 
 Chronology of Kant's Life and Publications. (After 
 
 Paulsen) 287 
 
 Index to Kant's Prolegomena 293 
 
 Index to the Article on Kant's Philosophy 299 
 
KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THESE Prolegomena are destined for the use, not 
 of pupils, but of future teachers, and even the 
 latter should not expect that they will be serviceable 
 for the systematic exposition of a ready-made science, 
 but merely for the discovery of the science itself. 
 
 There are scholarly men, to whom the history of 
 philosophy (both ancient and modern) is philosophy 
 itself; for these the present Prolegomena are not 
 written. They must wait till those who endeavor to 
 draw from the fountain of reason itself have com- 
 pleted their work ; it will then be the historian's turn 
 to inform the world of what has been done. Unfor- 
 tunately, nothing can be said, which in their opinion 
 has not been said before, and truly the same proph- 
 ecy applies to all future time ; for since the human 
 reason has for many centuries speculated upon innu- 
 merable objects in various ways, it is hardly to be ex- 
 pected that we should not be able to discover anal- 
 ogies for every new idea among the old sayings of 
 past ages. 
 
 My object is to persuade all those who think Meta- 
 physics worth studying, that it is absolutely necessary 
 to pause a moment, and, neglecting all that has 
 been done, to propose first the preliminary question, 
 'Whether such a thing as metaphysics be at all pos- 
 sible?' 
 
2 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 If it be a science, how comes it that it cannot, 
 like other sciences, obtain universal and permanent 
 recognition ? If not, how can it maintain its preten- 
 sions, and keep the human mind in suspense with 
 hopes, never ceasing, yet never fulfilled? Whether 
 then we demonstrate our knowledge or our ignorance 
 in this field, we must come once for all to a definite 
 conclusion respecting the nature of this so-called sci- 
 ence, which cannot possibly remain on its present 
 footing. It seems almost ridiculous, while every other 
 science is continually advancing, that in this, which 
 pretends to be Wisdom incarnate, for whose oracle 
 every one inquires, we should constantly move round 
 the same spot, without gaining a single step. And 
 so its followers having melted away, we do not find 
 men confident of their ability to shine in other sciences 
 venturing their reputation here, where everybody, how- 
 ever ignorant in other matters, may deliver a final 
 verdict, as in this domain there is as yet no standard 
 weight and measure to distinguish sound knowledge 
 from shallow talk. 
 
 After all it is nothing extraordinary in the elabora- 
 tion of a science, when men begin to wonder how far 
 it has advanced, that the question should at last 
 occur, whether and how such a science is possible? 
 Human reason so delights in constructions, that it has 
 several times built up a tower, and then razed it to 
 examine the nature of the foundation. It is never too 
 late to become wise ; but if the change comes late, 
 there is always more difficulty in starting a reform. 
 
 The question whether a science be possible, pre- 
 supposes a doubt as to its actuality. But such a doubt 
 offends the men whose whole possessions consist of 
 this supposed jewel ; hence he who raises the doubt 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 must expect opposition from all sides. Some, in the 
 proud consciousness of their possessions, which are 
 ancient, and therefore considered legitimate, will take 
 their metaphysical compendia in their hands, and look 
 down on him with contempt ; others, who never see 
 anything except it be identical with what they have 
 seen before, will not understand him, and everything 
 will remain for a time, as if nothing had happened to 
 excite the concern, or the hope, for an impending 
 change. 
 
 Nevertheless, I venture to predict that the inde- 
 pendent reader of these Prolegomena will not only 
 doubt his previous science, but ultimately be fully 
 persuaded, that it cannot exist unless the demands 
 here stated on which its possibility depends, be satis- 
 fied ; and, as this has never been done, that there is, 
 as yet, no such thing as Metaphysics. But as it can 
 never cease to be in demand,' — since the interests of 
 common sense are intimately interwpven with it, he 
 must confess that a radical reform, or rather a new 
 birth of the science after an original plan, are un- 
 avoidable, however men may struggle against it for a 
 while. 
 
 Since the Essays of Locke and Leibnitz, or rather 
 since the origin of metaphysics so far as we know its 
 history, nothing has ever happened which was more 
 decisive to its fate than the attack made upon it by 
 David Hume. He threw no light on this species of 
 knowledge, but he certainly struck a spark from 
 
 I Says Horace ; 
 
 " Rusticus expectat, dum defluat amnis, at ille 
 
 Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum; " 
 ' ' A rustic fellow waiteth on the shore 
 
 For the river to flow away. 
 
 But the Txver flows, and flows on as before, 
 
 And it flows forever and aye," 
 
4 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 which light might have been obtained, had it caught 
 some inflammable substance and had its smouldering 
 fire been carefully nursed and developed. 
 
 Hume started from a single but important concept 
 in Metaphysics, viz., that of Cause and Effect (in- 
 cluding its derivatives force and action, etc.). He 
 challenges reason, which pretends to have given birth 
 to this idea from herself, to answer him by what right 
 she thinks anything to be so constituted, that if that 
 thing be posited, something else also must necessarily 
 be posited ; for this is the meaning of the concept of 
 cause. He demonstrated irrefutably that it Was per- 
 fectly impossible for reason to think a priori and by 
 means of concepts a combination involving necessity. 
 We cannot at all see why, in consequence of the ex- 
 istence of one thing, another must necessarily exist, 
 or how the concept of such a combination can arise 
 a priori. Hence he inferred, that reason was alto- 
 gether deluded with reference to this concept, which 
 she erroneously considered as one of her children, 
 whereas in reality it was nothing but a bastard of im- 
 agination, impregnated by experience, which sub- 
 sumed certain representations under the Law of Asso- 
 ciation, and mistook the subjective necessity of habit 
 for an objective necessity arising from insight. Hence 
 he inferred that reason had no power to think such 
 combinations, even generally, because her concepts 
 would then be purely fictitious, and all her pretended 
 a priori cognitions nothing but common experiences 
 marked with a false stamp. In plain language there 
 is not, and cannot be, any such thing as metaphysics 
 at all. 1 
 
 1 Nevertheless Hume called this very destructive science metaphysics 
 and attached to it great value. Metaphysics and morals [he declares in the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 However hasty and mistaken Hume's conclusion 
 may appear, it was at least founded upon investiga- 
 tion, and this investigation deserved the concentrated 
 attention of the brighter spirits of his day as well as 
 determined efforts on their part to discover, if pos- 
 sible, a happier solution of the problem in the sense 
 proposed by him, all of which would have speedily 
 resulted in a complete reform of the science. 
 
 But Hume suffered the usual misfortune of meta- 
 physicians, of not being understood. It is positively 
 painful to see how utterly his opponents, Reid, Os- 
 wald, Beattie, and lastly Priestley, missed the point 
 of the problem ; for while they were ever taking for 
 granted that which he doubted, and demonstrating 
 with zeal and often with impudence that which he 
 never thought of doubting, they so misconstrued his 
 valuable suggestion that everything remained in its 
 old condition, as if nothing had happened. 
 
 The question was not whether the concept of 
 cause was right, useful, and even indispensable for 
 our knowledge of nature, for this Hume had never 
 doubted ; but whether that concept could be thought 
 by reason a priori, and consequently whether it pos- 
 sessed an inner truth, independent of all experience, 
 implying a wider application than merely to the ob- 
 jects of experience. This was Hume's problem. It 
 was a question concerning the origin, not concerning 
 the indispensable need of the concept. Were the former 
 
 fourth part of his Essays] are the most important branches of science ; math- 
 ematics and physics are not nearly so important. But the acute man merely 
 regarded the negative use arising from the moderation of extravagant claims 
 of speculative reason, and the complete settlement of the many endless and 
 troublesome controversies that mislead mankind. He overlooked the posi- 
 tive injury which results, if reason be deprived of its most important pro- 
 spects, which can alone supply to the will the highest aim. for all its en- 
 deavor. 
 
6 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 decided, the conditions of the use and the sphere of 
 its valid application would have been determined as 
 a matter of course. 
 
 But to satisfy the conditions of the problem, the 
 opponents of the great thinker should have penetrated 
 very deeply into the nature of reason, so far as it is 
 concerned with pure thinking, — a task which did not 
 suit them. They found a more convenient method of 
 being defiant without any insight, viz., the appeal to 
 common sense. It is indeed a great gift of God, to pos- 
 sess right, or (as they now call it) plain common 
 sense. But this common sense must be shown prac- 
 tically, by well-considered and reasonable thoughts 
 and words, not by appealing to it as an oracle, when 
 no rational justification can be advanced. To appeal 
 to common sense, when insight and science fail, and 
 no sooner — this is one of the subtile discoveries of 
 modern times, by means of which the most superficial 
 ranter can safely enter the lists with the most thorough 
 thinker, and hold his own. But as long as a particle 
 of insight remains, no one would think of having re- 
 course to this subterfuge. For what is it but an ap- 
 peal to the opinion of the multitude, of whose ap- 
 plause the philosopher is ashamed, while the popular 
 charlatan glories and confides in it ? I should think 
 that Hume might fairly have laid as much claim to 
 common sense as Beattie, and in addition to a critical 
 reason (such as the latter did not possess), which 
 keeps common sense in check and prevents it from 
 speculating, or, if speculations are under discussion, 
 restrains the desire to decide because it cannot satisfy 
 itself concerning its own arguments. By this means 
 alone can common sense remain sound. Chisels and 
 hammers may suffice to work a piece of wood, but for 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 Steel-engraving we require an engraver's needle. Thus 
 common sense and speculative understanding are 
 each serviceable in their own way, the former in judg- 
 ments which apply immediately to experience, the 
 latter when we judge universally from mere concepts, 
 as in metaphysics, where sound common sense, so 
 called in spite of the inapplicability of the word, has 
 no right to judge at all. 
 
 I openly confess, the suggestion of David Hume 
 was the very thing, which many years ago first inter- 
 rupted my dogmatic slumber, and gave my investiga- 
 tions in the field of speculative philosophy quite a 
 new direction. I was far from following him in the 
 conclusions at which he arrived by regarding, not the 
 whole of his problem, but a part, which by itself can 
 give us no information. If we start from a well- 
 founded, but undeveloped, thought, which another 
 has bequeathed to us, we may well hope by continued 
 reflection to advance farther than the acute man, to 
 whom we owe the first spark of light. 
 
 I therefore first tried whether Hume'^s objection 
 could not be put into a general form, and soon found 
 that the concept of the connexion of cause and effect 
 was by no means the only idea by which the under- 
 standing thinks the connexion of things a priori, but 
 rather that metaphysics consists altogether of such 
 connexions. I sought to ascertain their number, and 
 when I had satisfactorily succeeded in this by starting 
 from a single principle, I proceeded to the deduction 
 of these concepts, which I was now certain were not 
 deduced from experience, as Hume had apprehended, 
 but sprang from the pure understanding. This de- 
 duction (which seemed impossible to my acute prede- 
 cessor, which had never even occurred to any one 
 
8 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 else, though no one had hesitated to use the concepts 
 without investigating the basis of their objective val- 
 idity) was the most difficult task ever undertaken in the 
 service of metaphysics ; and the worst was that meta- 
 physics, such as it then existed, could not assist me 
 in the least, because this deduction alone can render 
 metaphysics possible. But as soon as I had succeeded 
 in solving Hume's problem not merely in a particular 
 case, but with respect to the whole faculty of pure 
 reason, I could proceed safely, though slowly, to de- 
 termine the whole sphere of pure reason completely 
 and from general principles, in its circumference as 
 well as in its contents. This was required for meta- 
 physics in order to construct its system according to 
 a reliable method. 
 
 But I fear that the execution of Hume's problem 
 in its widest extent (viz., my Critique of the Pure Rea- 
 son) will fare as the problem itself fared, when first 
 proposed. It will be misjudged because it is mis- 
 understood, and misunderstood because men choose 
 to skim through the book, and not to think through 
 it — a disagreeable task, because the work is dry, ob- 
 scure, opposed to all ordinary notions, and moreover 
 long-winded. I confess, however, I did not expect to 
 hear from philosophers complaints of want of popu- 
 larity, entertainment, and facility, when the existence 
 of a highly prized and indispensable cognition is at 
 stake, which cannot be established otherwise than by 
 the strictest rules of methodic precision. Popularity 
 may follow, but is inadmissible at the beginning. Yet 
 as regards a certain obscurity, arising partly from this 
 diffuseness of the plan, owing to which the principal 
 points of the investigation are easily lost sight of, the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 complaint is just, and I intend to remove it by the 
 present Prolegomena. 
 
 The first-mentioned work, which discusses the pure 
 faculty of reason in its whole compass and bounds, 
 will remain the foundation, to which the Prolegomena, 
 as a preliminary exercise, refer ; for our critique must 
 first be established as a complete and perfected sci- 
 ence, before we can think of letting Metaphysics ap- 
 pear on the scene, or even have the most distant hope 
 of attaining it. 
 
 We have been long accustomed to seeing anti- 
 quated knowledge produced as new by taking it out 
 of its former context, and reducing it to system in a 
 new suit of any fancy pattern under new titles. Most 
 readers will set out by expecting nothing else from 
 the Critique; but these Prolegomena may persuade 
 him that it is a perfectly new science, of which no 
 one has ever even thought, the very idea of which 
 was unknown, and for which nothing hitherto accom- 
 plished can be of the smallest use, except it be the 
 suggestion of Hume's doubts. Yet even he did not 
 suspect such a formal science, but ran his ship ashore, 
 for safety's sake, landing on scepticism, there to let it 
 lie and rot ; whereas my object is rather to give it a 
 pilot, who, by means of safe astronomical principles 
 drawn from a knowledge of the globe, and provided 
 with a complete chart and compass, may steer the 
 ship safely, whither he. listeth. 
 
 If in a new science, which is wholly isolated and 
 unique in its kind, we started with the prejudice that 
 we can judge of things by means of our previously 
 acquired knowledge, which is precisely what has first 
 to be called in question, we should only fancy we saw 
 everywhere what we had already known, the expres- 
 
lo rant's prolegomena. 
 
 sions, having a similar sound, only that all would ap- 
 pear utterly metamorphosed, senseless and unintelli- 
 gible, because we should have as a foundation our 
 own notions, made by long habit a second nature, in- 
 stead of the author's. But the longwindedness of the 
 work, so far as it depends on the subject, and not the 
 exposition, its consequent unavoidable dryness and 
 its scholastic precision are qualities which can only 
 benefit the science, though they may discredit the 
 book. 
 
 Few writers are gifted with the subtilty, and at the 
 same time with the grace, of David Hume, or with 
 the depth, as well as the elegance, of Moses Mendels- 
 sohn. Yet I flatter myself I might have made my 
 own exposition popular, had my object been merely to 
 sketch out a plan and leave its completion to others, 
 instead of having my heart in the welfare of the sci- 
 ence, to which I had devoted myself so long ; in truth, 
 it required no little constancy, and even self-denial, 
 to postpone the sweets of an immediate success to 
 the prospect of a slower, but more lasting, reputation. 
 
 Making plans is often the occupation of an opu- 
 lent and boastful mind, which thus obtains the repu- 
 tation of a creative genius, by demanding what it 
 cannot itself supply; by censuring, what it cannot 
 improve ; and by proposing, what it knows not where 
 to find. And yet something more should belong to a 
 sound plan of a general critique of pure reason than 
 mere conjectures, if this plan is to be other than the 
 usual declamations of pious aspirations. But pure 
 reason is a sphere so separate and self-contained, that 
 we cannot touch a part without affecting all the rest. 
 We can therefore do nothing without first determin- 
 ing the position of each part, and its relation to the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 1 
 
 restj for, as our judgment cannot be corrected by 
 anything without, the validity and use of every part 
 depends upon the relation in which it stands to all 
 the rest within the domain of reason. 
 
 So in the structure of an organized body, the end 
 of each member can only be deduced from the full 
 conception of the whole. It may, then, be said of 
 such a critique that it is never trustworthy except it 
 be perfectly complete, down to the smallest elements 
 of pure reason. In the sphere of this faculty you can 
 determine either everything or nothing. 
 
 But although a mere sketch, preceding the Critique 
 of Pure Reason, would be unintelligible, unreliable, 
 and useless, it is all the more useful as a sequel. For 
 so we are able to grasp the whole, to examine in de- 
 tail the chief points of importance in the science, and 
 to improve in many respects our exposition, as com- 
 pared with the first execution of the work. 
 
 After the completion of the work I offer here such 
 a plan which is sketched out after an analytical 
 method, while the work itself had to be executed in 
 the synthetical style, in order that the science may 
 present all its articulations, as the structure of a pe- 
 culiar cognitive faculty, in their natural combination. 
 But should any reader find this plan, which I publish 
 as the Prolegomena to any future Metaphysics, still 
 obscure, let him consider that not every one is bound 
 to study Metaphysics, that many minds will succeed 
 very well, in the exact and even in deep sciences, 
 more closely allied to practical experience,^ while they 
 
 IThe term Anschauung here used means sense-perception. It is that 
 which is given to the senses and apprehended immediately, as an object is 
 seen by merely looking at it. The translation intuition^ though etymolog- 
 ically correct, is misleading. In the present passage the term is not used in 
 its technical significance but means "practical experience." — Ed, 
 
12 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 cannot succeed in investigations dealing exclusively 
 with abstract concepts. In such cases men should 
 apply their talents to other subjects. But he who 
 undertakes to judge, or still more, to construct, a sys- 
 tem of Metaphysics, must satisfy the demands here 
 made, either by adopting my solution, or by thor- 
 oughly refuting it, and substituting another. To 
 evade it is impossible. 
 
 In conclusion, let it be remembered that this 
 much-abused obscurity (frequently serving as a mere 
 pretext under which people hide their own indolence 
 or dullness) has its uses, since' all who in other sci- 
 ences observe a judicious silence, speak authorita- 
 tively in metaphysics and make bold decisions, be- 
 cause their ignorance is not here contrasted with the 
 knowledge of others. Yet it does contrast with sound 
 critical principles, which we may therefore commend 
 in the words of Virgil : 
 
 "Ignavum, fucos, pecus a praesepibas arcent." 
 'Bees are defending their hives against drones, those indolent 
 creatures." 
 
PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 PREAMBLE ON THE PECULIARITIES OF ALL META- 
 PHYSICAL COGNITION. 
 
 §1. Of the Sources of Metaphysics. 
 
 IF it becomes desirable to formulate any cognition 
 as science, it will be necessary first to determine 
 accurately those peculiar features which no other sci- 
 ence has in common with it, constituting its charac- 
 teristics ; otherwise the boundaries of all sciences 
 become confused, and none of them can be treated 
 thoroughly according to its nature. 
 
 The characteristics of a science may consist of a 
 simple difference of object, or of the sources of cogni- 
 tion, or of the kind of cognition, or perhaps of all 
 three conjointly. On this, therefore, depends the 
 idea of a possible science and its territory. 
 
 First, as concerns the sources of metaphysical 
 cognition, its very concept implies that they cannot 
 be empirical. Its principles (including not only its 
 maxims but its basic notions) must never be derived 
 from experience. It must not be physical but meta- 
 physical knowledge, viz., knowledge lying beyond 
 experience. It can therefore have for its basis neither 
 external experience, which is the source of physics 
 proper, nor internal, which is the basis of empirical 
 
14 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 psychology. It is therefore a priori ]inowledge, com- 
 ing from pure Understanding and pure Reason. 
 
 But so far Metaphysics would not be distinguish-, 
 able from pure Mathematics; it must therefore be 
 called pure philosophical cognition; and for the 
 meaning of this term I refer to the Critique of the 
 Pure Reason (II. "Method of Transcendentalism," 
 Chap. I., Sec. i), where the distinction between these 
 two employments of the reason is suiBciently ex- 
 plained. So far concerning the sources of metaphysi- 
 cal cognition. 
 
 § 2. Concerning the Kind of Cognition which can alone 
 be called Metaphysical. 
 
 a. Of the Distinction between Analytical and Syn- 
 thetical Judgments in general. — The peculiarity of its 
 sources demands that metaphysical cognition must 
 consist of nothing but a priori judgments. But what- 
 ever be their origin, or their logical form, there is a 
 distinction in judgments, as to their content, accord- 
 ing to which they are either merely explicative, add- 
 ing nothing to the content of the cognition, or expan- 
 sive, increasing the given cognition : the former may 
 be called analytical, the latter synthetical, judgments. 
 
 Analytical judgments express nothing in the predi- 
 cate but what has been already actually thought in 
 the concept of the subject, though not so distinctly or 
 with the same (full) consciousness. When I say : All 
 bodies are extended, I have not amplified in the least 
 my concept of body, but have only analysed it, as ex- 
 tension was really thought to belong to that concept 
 before the judgment was made, though it was not ex- 
 pressed ; this judgment is therefore analytical. On 
 the contrary, this judgment, All bodies have weight. 
 
METAPHYSICAL COGNITION. I5 
 
 contains in its predicate something not actually 
 thought in the general concept of the body ; it ampli- 
 fies my knowledge by adding something to my con- 
 cept, and must therefore be called synthetical. 
 
 b. The Common Frinciple of all Analytical Judgments 
 is the Law of Contradiction. — All analytical judgments 
 depend wholly on the law of Contradiction, and are 
 in their nature a priori cognitions, whether the con- 
 cepts that supply them with matter be empirical or 
 not. For the predicate of an affirmative analytical 
 judgment is already contained in the concept of the 
 subject, of which it cannot be denied without contra- 
 diction. In the same way its opposite is necessarily 
 denied of the subject in an analytical, but negative, 
 judgment, by the same law of contradiction. Such is 
 the nature of the judgments : all bodies are extended, 
 and no bodies are unextended (i. e., simple). 
 
 For this very reason all analytical judgments are 
 a priori even when the concepts are empirical, as, for 
 example. Gold is a yellow metal ; for to know this I 
 require no experience beyond my concept of gold as 
 a yellow metal : it is, in fact, the very concept, and I 
 need only analyse it, without looking beyond it else- 
 where. 
 
 c. Synthetical Judgments require a different Principle 
 from the Law of Contradiction. — There are synthetical 
 a posteriori judgments of empirical origin; but there 
 are also others which are proved to be certain a priori, 
 and which spring from pure Understanding and Rea- 
 son. Yet they both agree in this, that they cannot 
 possibly spring from the principle of analysis, viz., 
 the law of contradiction, alone ; they require a quite 
 different principle, though, from whatever they may 
 be deduced, they must be subject to the law of con- 
 
1 6 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 tradiction, which must never be violated, even though 
 everything cannot be deduced from, it. I shall first 
 classify synthetical judgments. 
 
 1. Empirical Judgments a.xe&lvis.yssyri.ihetlca\. For 
 it would be absurd to base an analytical judgment on 
 experience, as our concept suffices for the purpose 
 without requiring any testimony from experience. 
 That body is extended, is a judgment established a 
 priori, and not an empirical judgment. For before 
 appealing to experience, we already have all the con- 
 ditions of the judgment in the concept, from which 
 we have but to elicit the predicate according to the 
 law of contradiction, and thereby to become conscious 
 of the necessity of the judgment, which experience 
 could not even teach us. 
 
 2. Mathematical Judgments are all synthetical. This 
 fact seems hitherto to have altogether escaped the 
 observation of those who have analysed human rea- 
 son ; it even seems directly opposed to all their con- 
 jectures, though incontestably certain, and most im- 
 portant in its consequences. For as it was found that 
 the conclusions of mathematicians all proceed accord- 
 ing to the law of contradiction (as is demanded by all 
 apodeictic certainty), men persuaded themselves that 
 the fundamental principles were known from the same 
 law. This was a great mistake, for a synthetical prop- 
 osition can indeed be comprehended according to the 
 law of contradiction, but only by presupposing another 
 synthetical proposition from which it follows, but 
 never in itself. 
 
 First of all, we must observe that all proper math- 
 ematical judgments are a priori, and not empirical, 
 because they carry with them necessity, which cannot 
 be obtained from experience. But if this be not con- 
 
METAPHYSICAL COGNITION. 17 
 
 ceded to me, very good ; I shall confine my assertion 
 to pure Mathematics, the very notion of which implies 
 that it contains pure a priori and not empirical cogni- 
 tions. 
 
 It might at first be thought that the proposition 
 7 + 5 = 12 is a mere analytical judgment, following 
 from the concept of the sum of seven and five, accord- 
 ing to the law of contradiction. But on closer exam- 
 ination it appears that the concept of the sum of 7-I-5 
 contains merely their union in a single number, with- 
 out its being at all thought what the particular num- 
 ber is that unites them. The concept of twelve is by 
 no means thought by merely thinking of the combina- 
 tion of seven and five ; and analyse this possible sum 
 as we may, we shall not discover twelve in the con- 
 cept. We must go beyond these concepts, by calling to 
 our aid some concrete image (Anschauung"), i.e., either 
 our five fingers, or five points (as Segner has it in his 
 Arithmetic), and we must add successively the units 
 of the five, given in some concrete image (^Anschau- 
 ung), to the concept of seven. Hence our concept 
 is really amplified by the proposition 7 -}- 5 = 12, and 
 we add to the first a second, not thought in it. Arith- 
 metical judgments are therefore synthetical, and the 
 more plainly according as we take larger numbers; 
 for in such cases it is clear that, however closely we 
 analyse our concepts without calling visual images 
 {Anschauun^ to our aid, we can never find the sum by 
 such mere dissection. 
 
 All principles of geometry are no less analytical. 
 That a straight line is the shortest path between two 
 points, is a synthetical proposition. For my concept 
 of straight contains nothing of quantity, but only a 
 quality. The attribute of shortness is therefore alto- 
 
i8 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 gether additional, and cannot be obtained by any 
 analysis of the concept. Here, too, visualisation 
 {Anschauung') must come to aid us. It alone makes 
 the synthesis possible. 
 
 Some other principles, assumed by geometers, are 
 indeed actually analytical, and depend on the law of 
 contradiction ; but they only serve, as identical prop- 
 ositions, as a method of concatenation, and not as 
 principles, e. g., a = a, the whole is equal to itself, or 
 a-\-d>a, the whole is greater than its part. And yet 
 even these, though they are recognised as valid from 
 mere concepts, are only admitted in mathematics, be- 
 cause they can be represented in some visual form 
 {Anschauung'). What usually makes us believe that 
 the predicate of such apodeictic^ judgments is already 
 contained in our concept, and that the judgment is 
 therefore analytical, is the duplicity of the expression, 
 requesting us to think a certain predicate as of neces- 
 sity implied in the thought of a given concept, which 
 necessity attaches to the concept. But the question 
 is not what we are requested to join in thought to the 
 given concept, but what we actually, think together 
 with and in it, though obscurely ; and so it appears 
 that the predicate belongs to these concepts necessa- 
 rily indeed, yet not directly but indirectly by an added 
 visualisation {AnscJiauung'). 
 
 § 3. /4 Remark on the General Division of Judgments 
 into Analytical and Synthetical. 
 This division is indispensable, as concerns the 
 Critique of human understanding, and therefore de-- 
 
 IThe term apodetctic is borrowed by Kanl from Aristotle who uses it in 
 the sense of "certain beyond dispute." The word is derived from airoSei/ci/u/iii 
 [=Ishaw) and is contrasted to dialectic propositions, i. o,, such statements 
 as admit of controversy.— £</, 
 
METAPHYSICAL COGNITION. 1 9 
 
 serves to be called classical, though otherwise it is of 
 little use, but this is the reason why dogmatic philos- 
 ophers, who always seek the sources of metaphysical 
 judgments in Metaphysics itself, and not apart from 
 it, in the pure laws of reason generally, altogether 
 neglected this apparently obvious distinction. Thus 
 the celebrated Wolf, and his acute follower Baum- 
 garten, came to seek the proof of the principle of 
 Sufficient Reason, which is clearly synthetical, in the 
 principle of Contradiction. In Locke's Essay, how- 
 ever, I find an indication of my division. For in the 
 fourth book (chap. iii. § 9, seq.), having discussed 
 the various connexions of representations in judg- 
 ments, and their sources, one of which he makes 
 "identity and contradiction" (analytical judgments), 
 and another the coexistence of representations in a 
 subject, he confesses (§ 10) that our a priori knowl- 
 edge of the latter is very narrow, and almost nothing. 
 But in his remarks on this species of cognition, there 
 is so little of what is definite, and reduced to rules, 
 that we cannot wonder if no one, not even Hume, was 
 led to make investigations concerning this sort of 
 judgments. For such general and yet definite prin- 
 ciples are not easily learned from other men, who 
 have had them obscurely in their minds. We must 
 hit on them first by our own refiexion, then we find 
 them elsewhere, where we could not possibly have 
 found them at first, because the authors themselves 
 did not know that such an idea lay at the basis of 
 their observations. Men who never think indepen- 
 dently have nevertheless the acuteness to discover 
 everything, after it has been once shown them, in 
 what was said long since, though no one ever saw it 
 there before. 
 
20 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 § 4. The General Question of the Prolegomena. — Is 
 Metaphysics at all Possible i 
 
 Were a metaphysics, which could maintain its 
 place as a science, really in existence ; could we say, 
 here is metaphysics, learn it, and it will convince you 
 irresistibly and irrevocably of its truth : this question 
 would be useless, and there would only remain that 
 other question (which would rather be a test of our 
 acuteness, than a proof of the existence of the thing 
 itself), "How is the science possible, and how does 
 reason come to attain it?" But human reason has 
 not been so fortunate in this case. There is no single 
 book to which you can point as you do to Euclid, and 
 say: This is Metaphysics; here you may find the 
 noblest objects of this science, the knowledge of a 
 highest Being, and of a future existence, proved from 
 principles of pure reason. We can be shown indeed 
 many judgments, demonstrably certain, and never 
 questioned; but these are all analytical, and rather 
 concern the materials and the scaffolding for Meta- 
 physics, than the extension of knowledge, which is 
 our proper object in studying it (§ 2). Even suppo- 
 sing you produce synthetical judgments (such as the 
 law of Sufficient Reason, which you have never 
 proved, as you ought to, from pure reason a priori, 
 though we gladly concede its truth), you lapse when 
 they come to be employed for your principal object, 
 into such doubtful assertions, that in all ages one 
 Metaphysics has contradicted another, either in its 
 assertions, or their proofs, and thus has itself des- 
 troyed its own claim to lasting assent. Nay, the very 
 attempts to set up such a science are the main cause 
 
METAPHYSICAL COGNITION. 21 
 
 of the early appearance of scepticism, a mental atti- 
 tude in which reason treats itself with such violence 
 that it could never have arisen save from complete 
 despair of ever satisfying our most important aspira- 
 tions. For long before men began to inquire into na- 
 ture methodically, they consulted abstract reason, 
 which had to some extent been exercised by means of 
 ordinary experience ; for reason is ever present, while 
 laws of nature must usually be discovered with labor. 
 So Metaphysics floated to the surface, like foam, which 
 dissolved the moment it was scooped off. But imme- 
 diately there appeared a new supply on the surface, 
 to be ever eagerly gathered up by some, while others, 
 instead of seeking in the depths the cause of the phe- 
 nomenon, thought they showed their wisdom by ridi- 
 culing the idle labor of their neighbors. 
 
 The essential and distinguishing feature of pure 
 mathematical cognition among all other a priori cog- 
 nitions is, that it cannot at all proceed from concepts, 
 but only by means of the construction of concepts 
 (see Critique II., Method of Transcendentalism, 
 chap. I., sect. i). As therefore in its judgments it 
 must proceed beyond the concept to that which its 
 corresponding visualisation {Anschauung') contains, 
 these judgments neither can, nor ought to, arise ana- 
 lytically, by dissecting the concept, but are all syn- 
 thetical. 
 
 I cannot refrain from pointing out the disadvan- 
 tage resulting to philosophy from the neglect of this 
 easy and apparently insignificant observation. Hume 
 being prompted (a task worthy of a philosopher) to 
 cast his eye over the whole field of a /«V7« cognitions 
 in which human understanding claims such mighty 
 possessions, heedlessly severed from it a whole, and 
 
22 rant's PROLEGOMENX. 
 
 indeed its most valuable, province, viz., pure mathe- 
 matics; for he thought its nature, or, so to speak, 
 the state-constitution of this empire, depended on 
 totally different principles, namely, on the law of 
 contradiction alone; and although he did not divide 
 judgments in this manner formally and universally as 
 I have done here, what he said was equivalent to this: 
 that mathematics contains only analytical, but meta- 
 physics synthetical, a prion judgments. In this, how- 
 ever, he was greatly mistaken, and the mistake had a 
 decidedly injurious effect upon his whole conception. 
 But for this, he would have extended his question 
 concerning the origin of our synthetical judgments 
 far beyond the metaphysical concept of Causality, 
 and included in it the possibility of mathematics a 
 priori also, for this latter he must have assumed to 
 be equally synthetical. And then he could not have 
 based his metaphysical judgments on mere experience 
 without subjecting the axioms of mathematics equally 
 to experience, a thing which he was far too acute to 
 do. The good company into which metaphysics would 
 thus have been brought, would have saved it from 
 the danger of a contemptuous ill-treatment, for the 
 thrust intended for it must have reached mathematics, 
 which was not and could not have been Hume's in- 
 tention. Thus that acute man would have been led 
 into considerations which must needs be similar to 
 those that now occupy us, but which would have 
 gained inestimably by his inimitably elegant style. 
 
 Metaphysical judgments, properly so called, are all 
 synthetical. We must distinguish judgments pertain- 
 ing to metaphysics from metaphysical judgments 
 properly so called. Many of the former are analytical, 
 but they only afford the means for metaphysical judg- 
 
METAPHYSICAL COGNITION. 23 
 
 ments, which are the whole end of the science, and 
 which are always synthetical. For if there be con- 
 cepts pertaining to metaphysics (as, for example, that 
 of substance), the judgments springing from simple 
 analysis of them also pertain to metaphysics, as, for 
 example, substance is that which only exists as sub- 
 ject ; and by means of several such analytical judg- 
 ments, we seek to approach the definition of the con- 
 cept. But as the analysis of a pure concept of the 
 understanding pertaining to metaphysics, does not 
 proceed in any different manner from the dissection 
 of any other, even empirical, concepts, not pertaining 
 to metaphysics (such as : air is an elastic fluid, the 
 elasticity of which is not destroyed by any known de- 
 gree of cold), it follows that the concept indeed, but 
 not the analytical judgment, is properly metaphysical. 
 This science has something peculiar in the production 
 of its a priori cognitions, which must therefore be dis- 
 tinguished from the features it has in common with 
 other rational knowledge. Thus the judgment, that 
 all the substance in things is permanent, is a synthet- 
 ical and properly metaphysical judgment. 
 
 If the « /rwr/ principles, which constitute the ma- 
 terials of metaphysics, have first been collected ac- 
 cording to fixed principles, then their analysis will be 
 of great value ; it might be taught as a particular part 
 (as a philosophia definitivd), containing nothing but 
 analytical judgments pertaining to metaphysics, and 
 could be treated separately from the synthetical which 
 constitute metaphysics proper. For indeed these 
 analyses are not elsewhere of much value, except in 
 metaphysics, i. e., as regards the synthetical judg- 
 ments, which are to be generated by these previously 
 analysed concepts. 
 
24 kant's prolegomkna. 
 
 The conclusion drawn in this section then is, that 
 metaphysics is properly concerned with synthetical 
 propositions a priori, and these alone constitute its 
 end, for which it indeed requires various dissections 
 of its concepts, viz., of its analytical judgments, but 
 wherein the procedure is not different from that in 
 every other kind of knowledge, in which we merely 
 seek to render our concepts distinct by analysis. But 
 the generation of a priori cognition by concrete im- 
 ages as well as by concepts, in fine of synthetical 
 propositions a priori in philosophical cognition, con- 
 stitutes the essential subject of Metaphysics. 
 
 Weary therefore as well of dogmatisni, which 
 teaches us nothing, as of scepticism, which does not 
 even promise us anything, not even the quiet state of 
 a contented ignorance ; disquieted by the importance 
 of knowledge so much needed ; and lastly, rendered 
 suspicious by long experience of all knowledge which 
 we believe we possess, or which offers itself, under the 
 title of pure reason : there remains but one critical 
 question on the answer to which our future procedure 
 depends, viz., Is Metaphysics at all possible? But this 
 question must be answered not by sceptical objections 
 to the asseverations of some actual system of meta- 
 physics (for we do not as yet admit such a thing to 
 exist), but from the conception, as yet only proble- 
 matical, of a science of this sort. 
 
 In the Critique of Pure Reason I have treated this 
 question synthetically, by making inquiries into pure 
 reason itself, and endeavoring in this source to deter- 
 mine the elements as well as the laws of its pure use 
 according to principles. The task is difficult, and 
 requires a resolute reader to penetrate by degrees into 
 a system, based on no data except reason itself, and 
 
METAPHYSICAL COGNITION. 25 
 
 which therefore seeks, without resting upon any fact, 
 to unfold knowledge from its original germs. Prole- 
 gomena, however, are designed for preparatory exer- 
 cises ; they are intended rather to point out what we 
 have to do in order if possible to actualise a science, 
 than to propound it. They must therefore rest upon 
 something already known as trustworthy, from which 
 we can set out with confidence, and ascend to sources 
 as yet unknown, the discovery of which will not only 
 explain to us what we knew, but exhibit a sphere of 
 many cognitions which all spring from the same 
 sources. The method of Prolegomena, especially of 
 those designed as a preparation for future metaphys- 
 ics, is consequently analytical. 
 
 But it happens fortunately, that though we cannot 
 assume metaphysics to be an actual science, we can say 
 with confidence that certain pure a priori synthetical 
 cognitions, pure Mathematics and pure Physics are 
 actual and given ; for both contain propositions, which 
 are thoroughly recognised as apodeictically certain, 
 partly by mere reason, partly by general consent aris- 
 ing from experience, and yet as independent of expe- 
 rience. We have therefore some at least uncontested 
 synthetical knowledge a priori, and need not ask 
 whether it be possible, for it is actual, but how it is 
 possible, in order that we may deduce from the prin- 
 ciple which makes the given cognitions possible the 
 possibility of all the rest. 
 
 The General Problem: How is Cognition from Pure 
 
 Reason Possible? 
 § 5. We have above learned the significant dis- 
 tinction between analytical and synthetical judgments. 
 The possibility of analytical propositions was easily 
 
26 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 comprehended, being entirely founded on the law of 
 Contradiction. The possibility of synthetical a pos- 
 teriori judgments, of those which are gathered from 
 experience, also requires no particular explanation; 
 for experience is nothing but a continual synthesis of 
 perceptions. There remain therefore only synthetical 
 propositions a priori, of which the possibility must 
 be sought or investigated, because they must depend 
 upon other principles than the law of contradiction. 
 
 But here we need not first establish the possibility 
 of such propositions so as to ask whether they are 
 possible. For there are enough of them which indeed 
 are of undoubted certainty, and as our present method 
 is analytical, we shall start from the fact, that such 
 synthetical but purely rational cognition actually ex- 
 ists ; but we must now inquire into the reason of this 
 possibility, and ask, how such cognition is possible, 
 in order that we may from the principles of its possi- 
 bility be enabled to determine the conditions of its 
 use, its sphere and its limits. The proper problem 
 upon which all depends, when expressed with scho- 
 lastic precision, is therefore : 
 
 How 'are Synthetic Propositions a priori possible? 
 
 For the sake of popularity I have above expressed 
 this problem somewhat differently, as an inquiry into 
 purely rational cognition, which I could do for once 
 without detriment to the desired comprehension, be- 
 cause, as we have only to do here with metaphysics 
 and its sources, the reader will, I hope, after the fore- 
 going remarks, keep in mind that when we speak of 
 purely rational cognition, we do not mean analytical, 
 but synthetical cognition.^ 
 
 1 It is unavoidable tliat as knowledge advances, certain expressions which 
 have become classical, after having been used since the infancy of sciencei 
 
METAPHYSICAL COGNITION. 7.^ 
 
 Metaphysics stands or falls with the solution of 
 this problem : its very existence depends upon it. 
 Let any one make metaphysical assertions with ever 
 so much plausibility, let him overwhelm us with con- 
 clusions, if he has not previously proved able to an- 
 ■ swer this question satisfactorily, I have a right to say: 
 this is all vain baseless philosophy and false wisdom. 
 You speak through pure reason, and claim, as it were 
 to create cognitions a priori by not only dissecting 
 given concepts, but also by asserting connexions which 
 do not rest upon the law of contradiction, and which 
 you believe you conceive quite independently of all ex- 
 perience; how do you arrive at this, and how will 
 you justify your pretensions? An appeal to the con- 
 sent of the common sense of mankind cannot be 
 allowed; for that is a witness whose authority de- 
 pends merely upon rumor. Says Horace : 
 
 "Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi." 
 " To all that which thou provest me thus, I refuse to give 
 credence." 
 
 The answer to this question, though indispensable, 
 is difficult; and though the principal reason that it 
 was not made long ago is, that the possibility of the 
 question never occurred to anybody, there is yet an- 
 other reason, which is this that a satisfactory answer 
 
 will be found inadequate and unsuitable, and a newer and more appropriate 
 application of the terms will give rise to confusion. [This is the case with 
 the term " analytical."] The analytical method, so far as it is opposed to the 
 synthetical, is very different from that which constitutes the essence of ana- 
 lytical propositions : it signifies only that we start from what is sought, as if 
 it were given, and ascend to the only conditions under which it is possible. 
 In this method we often use nothing but synthetical propositions, as in math' 
 ematical analysis, and it were better to term it the regressive method, in 
 contradistinction to the synthetic or progressive. A principal part of Logic 
 too is distinguished by the name of Analytics, which here signifies the logic 
 of truth in contrast to Dialectics, without considering whether the cognitions 
 belonging to it are analytical or synthetical. 
 
28 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 to this one question requires a much more persistent, 
 profound, and painstaking reflexion, than the most 
 diffuse work on Metaphysics, which on its first ap- 
 pearance promised immortality to its author. And 
 every intelligent reader, when he carefully reflects 
 what this problem requires, must at first be struck 
 with its difSculty, and would regard it as insoluble and 
 even impossible, did there not actually exist pure syn- 
 thetical cognitions a priori. This actually happened 
 to David Hume, though he did not conceive the ques- 
 tion in its entire universality as is done here, and as 
 must be done, should the answer be decisive for all 
 Metaphysics. For how is it possible, says that acute 
 man, that when a concept is given me, I can go be- 
 yond it and connect with it another, which is not con- 
 tained in it, in such a manner as if the latter necessa- 
 rily belonged to the former? Nothing but experience 
 can furnish us with such connexions (thus he con- 
 cluded from the difficulty which he took to be an im- 
 possibility), and all that vaunted necessity, or, what 
 is the same thing, all cognition assumed to be a priori, 
 is nothing but a long habit of accepting something as 
 true, and hence of mistaking subjective necessity for 
 objective. 
 
 Should my reader complain of the difficulty and 
 the trouble which I occasion him in the solution of 
 this problem, he is at liberty to solve it himself in an 
 easier way. Perhaps he will then feel under obligation 
 to the person who has undertaken for him a labor of so 
 profound research, and will rather be surprised at the 
 facility with which, considering the nature of the sub- 
 ject, the solution has been attained. Yet it has cost 
 years of work to solve the problem in its whole uni- 
 versality (using the term in the mathematical sense, 
 
METAPHYSICAL COGNITION. 29 
 
 viz., for that which is sufficient for all cases), and 
 finally to exhibit it in the analytical form, as the 
 reader finds it here. 
 
 All metaphysicians are therefore solemnly and 
 legally suspended from their occupations till they 
 shall have answered in a satisfactory manner the 
 question, "How are synthetic cognitions a priori pos- 
 sible?" For the answer contains the only credentials 
 which they must show when they have anything to 
 offer in the name of pure reason. But if they do not 
 possess these credentials, they can expect nothing 
 else of reasonable people, who have been deceived so 
 often, than to be dismissed without further ado. 
 
 If they on the other hand desire to carry on their 
 business, not as a science, but as an art of wholesome 
 oratory suited to the common sense of man, they can- 
 not in justice be prevented. They will then speak the 
 modest language of a rational belief, they will grant 
 that they are not allowed even to conjecture, far less 
 to know, anything which lies beyond the bounds of 
 alt possible experience, but only to assume (not for 
 speculative use, which they must abandon, but for 
 practical purposes only) the existence of something 
 that is possible and even indispensable for the guid- 
 ance of the understanding and of the will in life. In 
 this manner alone can they be called useful and wise 
 men, and the more so as they renounce the title of 
 metaphysicians ; for the latter profess to be specula- 
 tive philosophers, and since, when judgments a prion 
 are under discussion, poor probabilities cannot be ad- 
 mitted (for what is declared to be known a priori is 
 thereby announced as necessary), such men cannot be 
 permitted to play with conjectures, but their assertions 
 must be either science, or are worth nothing at all. 
 
30 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 It may be said, that the entire transcendental phi- 
 losophy, which necessarily precedes all metaphysics, 
 is nothing but the complete solution of the problem 
 here propounded, in systematical order and complete- 
 ness, and hitherto we have never had any transcen- 
 dental philosophy; for what goes by its name is prop- 
 erly a part of metaphysics, whereas the former science 
 is intended first to constitute the possibility of the 
 latter, and must therefore precede all metaphysics. 
 And it is not surprising that when a whole science, 
 deprived of all help from other sciences, and conse- 
 quently in itself quite new, is required to answer a 
 single question satisfactorily, we should find the an- 
 swer troublesome and difficult, nay even shrouded in 
 obscurity. 
 
 As we now proceed to this solution according to 
 the analytical method, in which we assume that such 
 cognitions from pure reasons actually exist, we can 
 only appeal to two sciences of theoretical cognition 
 (which alone is under consideration here), pure math- 
 ematics and pure natural science (physics). For these 
 alone can exhibit to us objects in a definite and actual- 
 isable form {in der Anschauung'), and consequently (if 
 there should occur in them a cognition a priori') can 
 show the truth or conformity of the cognition to the 
 object in concrete, that is, its actuality, from which we 
 could proceed to the reason of its possibility by the 
 analytic method. This facilitates our work greatly 
 for here universal considerations are not only applied 
 to facts, but even start from them, while in a synthe- 
 tic procedure they must strictly be derived in abstracto 
 from concepts. 
 
 But, in order to rise from these actual and at the 
 same time well-grounded pure c6gnitions a priori to 
 
METAPHYSICAL COGNITION. 31 
 
 such a possible cognition of the same as we are seek- 
 ing, viz., to metaphysics as a science, we must com- 
 prehend that which occasions it, I mean the mere 
 natural, though in spite of its truth not unsuspected, 
 cognition a priori -which lies at the bottom of that sci- 
 ence, the elaboration of which without any critical in- 
 vestigation of its possibility is commonly called meta- 
 physics. In a word, we must comprehend the natural 
 conditions of such a science as a part of our inquiry, 
 and thus the transcendental problem will be gradually 
 answered by a division into four questions : 
 
 1. Ifote/ is pure mathematics possible f 
 
 2. Mow is pure natural science possible? 
 
 3. How is metaphysics in general possible? 
 
 4. Ifow is metaphysics as a science possible? 
 
 It may be seen that the solution of these problems, 
 though chiefly designed to exhibit the essential matter 
 of the Critique, has yet something peculiar, which for 
 itself alone deserves attention. This is the search for 
 the sources of given sciences in reason itself, so that 
 its faculty of knowing something a priori may by its 
 own deeds be investigated and measured. By this 
 procedure these sciences gain, if not with regard to 
 their contents, yet as to their proper use, and while 
 they throw light on the higher question concerning 
 their common origin, they give, at the same time, an 
 occasion better to explain their own nature. 
 
FIRST PART OF THE TRANSCEN- 
 DENTAL PROBLEM. 
 
 HOW IS PURE MATHEMATICS POSSIBLE? 
 
 §6. 
 
 HERE is a great and established branch of knowl- 
 edge, encompassing even now a wonderfully 
 large domain and promising an unlimited extension in 
 the future. Yet it carries with it thoroughly apodeicti- 
 cal certainty, i. e., absolute necessity, which therefore 
 rests upon no empirical grounds. Consequently it is 
 a pure product of reason, and moreover is thoroughly 
 synthetical. [Here the question arises :] 
 
 " How then is it possible for human reason to pro- 
 duce a cognition of this nature entirely a priori?" 
 
 Does not this faculty [which produces mathemat- 
 ics], as it neither is nor can be based upon experi- 
 ence, presuppose some ground of cognition a /«V»«', 
 which lies deeply hidden, but which might reveal it- 
 self by these-its effects, if their first beginnings were 
 but diligently ferreted out? 
 
 § 7. But we find that all mathematical cognition 
 has this peculiarity : it must first exhibit its concept 
 in a visual form (^Anschauung) and indeed a priori, 
 therefore in a visual form which is not empirical, but 
 pure. Without this mathematics cannot take a single 
 step; hence its judgments are always visual, viz., 
 
HOW IS PURE MATHEMATICS POSSIBLE? 33 
 
 "intuitive"; whereas philosophy must be satisfied 
 with discursive judgments from mere concepts, and 
 though it may illustrate its doctrines through a visual 
 figure, can never derive them from it. This obser- 
 vation on the nature of mathematics gives us a clue 
 to the first and highest condition of its possibility, 
 which is, that some non-sensuous visualisation (called 
 pure intuition, or reine Anschauung') must form its 
 basis, in which all its concepts can be exhibited or 
 constructed, in concrete and yet a priori. If we can 
 find out this pure intuition and its possibility, we may 
 thence easily explain how synthetical propositions 
 a priori are possible in pure mathematics, and conse- 
 quently how this science itself is possible. Empirical 
 intuition [viz., sense-perception] enables us without 
 difficulty to enlarge the concept which we frame of an 
 object of intuition [or sense-perception], by new pred- 
 icates, which intuition [i. e., sense-perception] itself 
 presents synthetically in experience. Pure intuition 
 [viz., the visualisation of forms in our imagination, 
 from which every thing sensual, i. e., every thought 
 of material qualities, is excluded] does so likewise, 
 only with this difference, that in the latter case the 
 synthetical judgment is a priori certain and apodeic- 
 tical, in the former, only a posteriori and empirically 
 certain ; because this latter contains only that which 
 occurs in contingent empirical intuition, but the for- 
 mer, that which must necessarily be discovered in 
 pure intuition. Here intuition, being an intuition a 
 priori, is before all experience, viz., before any percep- 
 tion of particular objects, inseparably conjoined with 
 its concept. 
 
 § 8. But with this step our perplexity seems rather 
 to increase than to lessen. For the question now 
 
34 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 is, "How is it possible to intuite [in a visual form] 
 anything a priori?" An intuition [viz., a visual sense- 
 perception] is such a representation as immediately 
 depends upon the presence of the object. Hence it 
 seems impossible to intuite from the outset a priori, be- 
 cause intuition would in that event take place without 
 either a former or a present object to refer to, and by 
 consequence could not be intuition. Concepts indeed 
 are such, that we can easily form some of them a 
 priori, viz., such as contain nothing but the thought 
 of an object in general ; and we need not find our- 
 selves in an immediate relation to the object. Take, 
 for instance, the concepts of Quantity, of Cause, etc. 
 But even these require, in order to make them under- 
 stood, a certain concrete use — that is, an application 
 to some sense-experience {Anschauung'), by which an 
 object of them is given us. But how can the intui- 
 tion of the object [its visualisation] precede the ob- 
 ject itself? 
 
 § 9. If our intuition [i. e., our sense-exp(erience] 
 were perforce of such a nature as to represent things 
 as they are in themselves, there would not be any iur 
 tuition a priori, but intuition would be always empir- 
 ical. For I can only know what is contained in the ob- 
 ject in itself when it is present and given to me. It is 
 indeed even then incomprehensible how the visualis- 
 ing {Anschauung') of a present thing should make me 
 know this thing as it is in itself, as its properties can- 
 not migrate into my faculty of representation. But 
 even granting this possibility, a visualising of that 
 sort would not take place a priori, that is, before the 
 object were presented to me ; for without this latter 
 fact no reason of a relation between my representa- 
 
HOW IS PURE MATHEMATICS POSSIBLE? 35 
 
 tion and the object can be imagined, unless it depend 
 upon a direct inspiration. 
 
 Therefore in one way only can my intuition 
 {Anschauung') anticipate the actuality of the ob- 
 ject, and be a cognition a priori, viz. : if my intui- 
 tion contains nothing but the form of sensibility, 
 antedating in my subjectivity all the actual im- 
 pressions through which I am affected by objects. 
 For that objects of sense can only be intuited ac- 
 cording to this form of sensibility I can know a priori. 
 Hence it follows: that propositions, which concern 
 this form of sensuous intuition only, are possible and 
 valid for objects of the senses ; as also, conversely, 
 that intuitions which are possible a priori can never 
 concern any other things than objects of our senses.^ 
 § 10. Accordingly, it is only the form of sensuous 
 intuition by which we can intuite things a priori, but 
 by which we can know objects only as they appear to 
 us (to our senses), not as they are in themselves ; and 
 this assumption is absolutely necessary if synthetical 
 propositions ff/nV7r« be granted as possible, or if, in 
 case they actually occur, their possibility is to be 
 comprehended and determined beforehand. 
 
 Now, the intuitions which pure mathematics lays 
 at the foundation of all its cognitions and judgments 
 which appear at once apodeictic and necessary are 
 Space and Time. For mathematics must first have 
 all its concepts in intuition, and pure mathematics in 
 pure intuition, that is, it must construct them. If it 
 proceeded in any other way, it would be iinpossible 
 to make any headway, for mathematics proceeds, not 
 
 1 This whole paragraph (g g) will be better understood when compared 
 with Remark I,, following this section, appearing in the present edition on 
 page 40. — Ed. 
 
36 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 analytically by dissection of concepts, but synthetic- 
 ally, and if pure intuition be wanting, thete is nothing 
 in which the matter for synthetical judgments a priori 
 can be given. Geometry is based upon the pure in- 
 tuition of space. Arithmetic accomplishes its concept 
 of number by the successive addition of units in time ; 
 and-pure mechanics especially cannot attain its con- 
 cepts of motion without employing the representation 
 of time. Both representations, however, are only in- 
 tuitions ; for if we omit from the empirical intuitions 
 of bodies and their alterations (motion) everything 
 empirical, or belonging to sensation, space and time 
 still remain, which are therefore pure intuitions that 
 lie a priori at the basis of the empirical. Hence they 
 can never be omitted, but at the same time, by their 
 being pure intuitions a priori, they prove that they are 
 mere forms of our sensibility, which must precede all 
 empirical intuition, or perception of actual objects, 
 and conformably to which objects can be known a 
 priori, but only as they appear to us. 
 
 §11. The problem of the present section is there- 
 fore solved. Pure mathematics, as synthetical cogni- 
 tion a priori, is only possible by referring to no other 
 objects than those of the senses. At the basis of their 
 empirical intuition lies a pure intuition (of space and 
 of time) which is a prion. This is possible, because 
 the latter intuition is nothing but the mere form of 
 sensibility, which precedes the actual appearance of 
 the objects, in that it, in fact, makes them possible. 
 Yet this faculty of intuiting a priori affects not the 
 matter of the phenomenon (that is, the sense-element 
 in it, for this constitutes that which is empirical), but 
 its form, viz., space and time. Should any man ven- 
 ture to doubt that these are determinations adhering 
 
HOW IS PURE MATHEMATICS POSSIBLE? 37 
 
 not to things in themselves, but to their relation to 
 our sensibility, I should be glad to know how it can 
 be possible to know the constitution of things a priori, 
 viz. , before we have any acquaintance with them and 
 before they are presented to us. Such, however, is 
 the case with space and time. But this is quite com- 
 prehensible as soon as both count for nothing more 
 than formal conditions of our sensibility, while the 
 objects count merely as phenomena ; for then the form 
 of the phenomenon, i. e., pure intuition, can by all 
 means be represented as proceeding from ourselves, 
 that is, a priori. 
 
 § 12. In order to add something by way of illus- 
 tration and confirmation, we need only watch the 
 ordinary and necessary procedure of geometers. All 
 proofs of the complete congruence of two given fig- 
 ures (where the one can in every respect be substi- 
 tuted for the other) come ultimately to this that they 
 may be made to coincide; which is evidently noth- 
 ing else than a synthetical proposition resting upon 
 immediate intuition, and this intuition must be pure, 
 or given a priori, otherwise the proposition could not 
 rank as apodeictically certain, but would have em- 
 pirical certainty only. In that case, it could only be 
 said that it is always found to be so, and holds good 
 only as far as our perception reaches. That every- 
 where space (which [in its entirety] is itself no longer 
 the boundary of another space) has three dimensions, 
 and that space cannot in any way have more, is based 
 on the proposition that not more than three lines can 
 intersect at right angles in one point; but this prop- 
 osition cannot by any means be shown from concepts, 
 but rests immediately on intuition, and indeed on pure 
 and a priori intuition, because it is apodeictically cer- 
 
38 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 tain. That we can require a line to be drawn to in- 
 finity {in indefinitum), or that a series of changes (for 
 example, spaces traversed by motion) shall be infi- 
 nitely continued, presupposes a representation of 
 space and time, which can only attach to intuition, 
 namely, so far as it in itself is bounded by nothing, 
 for from concepts it could never be inferred. Conse- 
 quently, the basis of mathematics actually are pure 
 intuitions, which make its synthetical and apodeic- 
 tically valid propositions possible. Hence our tran- 
 scendental deduction of the notions of space and of 
 time explains at the same time the possibility of pure 
 mathematics. Without some such deduction its truth 
 may be granted, but its existence could by no means 
 be understood, and we must assume "that everything 
 which can be given to our senses (to the external 
 senses in space, to the internal one in time) is intuited 
 by us as it appears to us, not as it is in itself. " 
 
 § 13. Those who cannot yet rid themselves of the 
 notion that space and time are actual qualities inher- 
 ing in things in themselves, may exercise their acumen 
 on the following paradox. When they have in vain 
 attempted its solution, and are free from prejudices 
 at least for a few moments, they will suspect that the 
 degradation of space and of time to mere forms of 
 our sensuous intuition may perhaps be well founded. 
 
 If two things are quite equal in all respects as 
 much as can be ascertained by all means possible, 
 quantitatively and qualitatively, it must follow, that 
 the one can in all cases and under all circumstances 
 replace the other, and this substitution would not oc- 
 casion the least perceptible difference. This in fact 
 is true of plane figures in geometry; but some spher- 
 ical figures exhibit, notwithstanding a complete in- 
 
HOW IS PURE MATHEMATICS POSSIBLE? 39 
 
 ternal agreement, such a contrast in their external 
 relation, that the one figure cannot possibly be put in 
 the place of the other. For instance, two spherical 
 triangles on opposite hemispheres, which have an arc 
 of the equator as their common base, may be quite 
 equal, both as regards sides and angles, so that noth- 
 ing is to be found in either, if it be described for itself 
 alone and completed, that would not equally be ap- 
 plicable to both ; and yet the one cannot be put in the 
 place of the other (being situated upon the opposite 
 hemisphere). Here then is- an internal difference be- 
 tween the two triangles, which difference our under- 
 standing cannot describe as internal, and which only 
 manifests itself by external relations in space. 
 
 But I shall adduce examples, taken from common 
 life, that are more obvious still. 
 
 What can be more similar in every respect and in 
 every part more alike to my hand and to my ear, than 
 their images in a mirror? And yet I cannot put such 
 a hand as is seen in the glass in the place of its arche- 
 type ; for if this is a right hand, that in the glass is a 
 left one, and the image or reflexion of the right ear is 
 a left one which never can serve as a substitute for 
 the other. There are in this case no internal differ- 
 ences which our understanding could determine by 
 thinking alone. Yet the differences are internal as 
 the senses teach, for, notwithstanding their complete 
 equality and similarity, the left hand cannot be en- 
 closed in the same bounds as the right one (they are 
 not congruent) ; the glove of one hand cannot be used 
 for the other. What is the solution? These objects 
 are not representations of things as they are in them- 
 selves, and as the pure understanding would cognise 
 them, but sensuous intuitions, that is, appearances, 
 
40 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 the possibility of which rests upon the relation of cer- 
 tain things unknown in themselves to something else, 
 viz., to our sensibility. Space is the form of the ex- 
 ternal intuition of this sensibility, and the internal 
 determination of every space is only possible by the 
 determination of its external relation to the whole 
 space, of which it is a part (in other words, by its re- 
 lation to the external sense). That is to say, the part 
 is only possible through the whole, which is never the 
 case with things in themselves, as objects of the mere 
 understanding, but with appearances only. Hence 
 the difference between similar and equal things, which 
 are yet not congruent (for instance, two symmetric 
 helices), cannot be made intelligible by any concept, 
 but only by the relation to the right and the left hands 
 which immediately refers to intuition. 
 
 Remark I. 
 Pure Mathematics, and especially pure geometry, 
 can only have objective reality on condition that they 
 refer to objects of sense. But in regard to the latter 
 the principle holds good, that our sense representa- 
 tion is not a representation of things in theniselves, 
 but of the way in which they appear to us. Hence it 
 follows, that the propositions of geometry are not the 
 results of a mere creation of our poetic imagination, 
 and that therefore they caiinot be referred with assu- 
 rance to actual objects ; but rather that they are nec- 
 essarily valid of space, and consequently of all that 
 may be found in space, because space is nothing else 
 than the form of all external appearances, and it is 
 this form alone in which objects of sense can be given. 
 Sensibility, the form of which is the basis of geom- 
 etry, is that upon which the possibility of external 
 
HOW IS PURE MATHEMATICS POSSIBLE? 41 
 
 appearance depends. Therefore these appearances 
 can never contain anything but what geometry pre- 
 scribes to them. 
 
 It would be quite otherwise if the senses were so 
 constituted as to represent objects as they are in 
 themselves. For then it would not by any means fol- 
 low from the conception of space, which with all its 
 properties serves to the geometer as an a priori foun- 
 dation, together with what is thence inferred, must 
 be so in nature. The space of the geometer would 
 be considered a mere fiction, and it would not be 
 credited with objective validity, because we cannot 
 see how things must of necessity agree with an image 
 of them, which we make spontaneously and previous 
 to our acquaintance with them. But if this image, or 
 rather this formal intuition, is the essential property of 
 our sensibility, by means of which alone objects are 
 given to us, and if this sensibility represents not 
 things in themselves, but their appearances : we shall 
 easily comprehend, and at the same time indisputably 
 prove, that all external objects of our world of sense 
 must necessarily coincide in the most rigorous way 
 with the propositions of geometry ; because sensibil- 
 ity by means of its form of external intuition, viz. , by 
 space, the same with which the geometer is occupied, 
 makes those objects at all possible as mere appear- 
 ances. 
 
 It will always remain a remarkable phenomenon 
 in the history of philosophy, that there was a time, 
 when even mathematicians, who at the same time 
 were philosophers, began to doubt, not of the accuracy 
 of their geometrical propositions so far as they con- 
 cerned space, but of their objective validity and the 
 applicability of this concept itself, and of all its corol 
 
42 kant's prolkgomena. 
 
 laries, to nature. They showed much concern whether 
 a line in nature might not consist of physical points, 
 and consequently that true space in the object might 
 consist of simple [discrete] parts, while the space 
 which the geometer has in his mind [being continu- 
 ous] cannot be such. They did not recognise that 
 this mental space renders possible the physical space, 
 i. e., the extension of matter; that this pure space is 
 not at all a quality of things in themselves, but a form 
 of Our sensuous faculty of representation ; and that 
 all objects in space are mere appearances, i. e., not 
 things in themselves but representations of our sensu- 
 ous intuition. But such is the case, for the space of 
 the geometer is exactly the form of sensuous intuition 
 which we find a priori in us, and contains the ground, 
 of the possibility of all external appearances (accord- 
 ing to their form), and the latter must necessarily and 
 most rigidly agree with the propositions of the geom- 
 eter, which he draws not from any fictitious concept, 
 but from the subjective basis of all external phenom- 
 ena, which is sensibility itself. In this and no other 
 way can geometry be made secure as to the undoubted 
 objective reality of its propositions against all the in- 
 trigues of a shallow Metaphysics, which is surprised 
 at them [the geometrical propositions], because it 
 has not traced them to the sources of their concepts. 
 
 Remark II. 
 Whatever is given us as object, must be given us 
 in intuition. All our intuition however takes place by 
 means of the senses only ; the understanding intuites 
 nothing, butonly reflects. And as we have just shown 
 that the senses never and in no manner enable us to 
 know things in themselves, but only their appear- 
 
HOW IS PURE MATHEMATICS POSSIBLE? 43 
 
 ances, which are mere representations of the sensi- 
 bility, we conclude that ' all bodies, together with the 
 space in which they are, must be considered nothing 
 but mere representations in us, and exist nowhere but 
 in our thoughts. ' You will say : Is not this manifest 
 idealism ? 
 
 Idealism consists in the assertion, that there are 
 none but thinking beings, all other things, which we 
 think are perceived in intuition, being nothing but 
 representations in the thinking beings, to which no 
 object external to them corresponds in fact. Whereas 
 I say, that things as objects of our senses existing 
 outside us are given, but we know nothing of what 
 they may be in themselves, knowing only their ap- 
 pearances, i. e. , the representations which they cause 
 in us by affecting our senses. Consequently I grant 
 by all means that there are bodies without us, that is, 
 things which, though quite unknown to us as to what 
 they are in themselves, we yet know by the represen- 
 tations which their influence on our sensibility pro- 
 cures us, and which we call bodies, a term signifying 
 merely the appearance of the thing which is unknown 
 to us, but not therefore less actual. Can this be 
 termed idealism? It is the very contrary. 
 
 Long before Locke's time, but assuredly since 
 him, it has been generally assumed and granted with- 
 out detriment to the actual existence of external 
 things, that many of their predicates may be said to- 
 belong not to the things in themselves, but to their 
 appearances, and to have no proper existence outside 
 our representation. Heat, color, and taste, for in- 
 stance, are of this kind. Now, if I go farther, and for 
 weighty reasons rank as mere appearances the re- 
 maining qualities of bodies also, which are called pri- 
 
44 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 mary, such as extension, plaqe, and in general space, 
 with all that which belongs to it (impenetrability or 
 materiality, space, etc.) — no one in the least can ad- 
 duce the reason of its being inadmissible. As little 
 as the man who admits colors not to be properties of 
 the object in itself, but only as modifications of the 
 sense of sight, should on that account be called an 
 idealist, so little can my system be named idealistic, 
 merely because I find that more, nay. 
 
 All the properties which constitute the intuition of a 
 body belong merely to its appearance. 
 
 The existence of the thing that appears is thereby 
 not destroyed, as in genuine idealism, but it is only 
 shown, that we cannot possibly know it by the senses 
 as it is in itself. 
 
 I should be glad to know what my assertions must 
 be in order to avoid all idealism. Undoubtedly, I 
 should say, that the representation of space is not 
 only perfectly conformable to the relation which our 
 sensibility has to objects — that I have said — but that 
 it is quite similar to the object, — an assertion in which 
 I can find as little meaning as if I said that the sensa- 
 tion of red has a similarity to the property of vermil- 
 ion, which in me excites this sensation. 
 
 Remark III. 
 
 Hence we may at once dismiss an easily foreseen 
 but futile objection, "that by admitting the ideality 
 of space and of time the whole sensible world would 
 be turned into mere sham." At first all philosophical 
 insight into the nature of sensuous cognition was 
 spoiled, by making the sensibility merely a confused 
 mode of representation, according to which we still 
 know things as they are, but without being able to re- 
 
HOW IS PURE MATHEMATICS POSSIBLE? 45 
 
 duce everything in this our representation: to a clear 
 consciousness ; whereas proof is offered by us that 
 sensibility consists, not in this logical distinction of 
 clearness and obscurity, but in the genetical one of 
 the origin of cognition itself. For sensuous percep- 
 tion represents things not at all as they are, but only 
 the mode in which they affect our senses, and conse- 
 quently by sensuous perception appearances only and 
 not things themselves are given to the understanding 
 for reflexion. After this necessary corrective, an ob- 
 jection rises from an unpardonable and almost inten- 
 tional misconception, as if my doctrine turned all the 
 things of the world of sense into mere illusion. 
 
 When an appearance is given us, we are still quite 
 free as to how we should judge the matter. The ap- 
 pearance depends upon the senses, but the judgment 
 upon the understanding, and the only question is, 
 whether in the determination of the object there is 
 truth or not. But the difference between truth and 
 dreaming is not ascertained by the nature of the rep- 
 resentations, which are referred to objects (for they 
 are the same in both cases), but by their connexion 
 according to those rules, which determine the coher- 
 ence of the representations in the concept of an ob- 
 ject, and by ascertaining whether they can subsist to- 
 gether in experience or not. And it is not the fault 
 of the appearances if our cognition takes illusion for 
 truth, i. e., if the intuition, by which an object is given 
 us, is considered a concept of the thing or of its exist- 
 ence also, which the understanding can only think. 
 The senses represent to us the paths of the planets as 
 now progressive, now retrogressive, and herein is 
 neither falsehood nor truth, because as long as we 
 hold this path to be nothing but appearance, we do 
 
46 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 not judge of the objective nature of their motion. But 
 as a false judgment may easily arise when the under- 
 standing is not on its guard against this subjective 
 mode of representation being considered objective, 
 we say they appear to move backward ; it is not the 
 senses however which must be charged with the illu- 
 sion, but the understanding, whose province alone it 
 is to give an objective judgment on appearances. 
 
 Thus, even if we did not at all reflect on the origin 
 of our representations, whenever we connect our in- 
 tuitions of sense (whatever they may contain), in 
 space and in time, according to the rules of th-e coher- 
 ence of all cognition in experience, illusion or truth 
 will arise according as we are negligent or careful. It 
 is merely a question of the use of sensuous represen- 
 tations in the understanding, and not of their origin. 
 In the same way, if I consider all the representations 
 of the senses, together with their form, space and 
 time, to be nothing but appearances, and space and 
 time to be a mere form of the sensibility, which is not 
 to be met with in objects out of it, and if I make use 
 of these representations in reference to possible ex- 
 perience only, there is nothing in my regarding them 
 as appearances that can lead astray or cause illusion. 
 For all that they can correctly cohere according to 
 rules of truth in experience. Thus all the proposi- 
 tions of geometry hold good of space as well as of all 
 the objects of the senses, consequently of all possible- 
 experience, whether I consider space as a mere form 
 of the sensibility, or as something cleaving to the 
 things themselves. In the former case however I com- 
 prehend how I can know a priori these propositions 
 concerning all the objects of external intuition. Other- 
 wise, everything else as regards all possible experience 
 
HOW IS PURE MATHKMATICS POSSIBLE? 47 
 
 remains just as if I had not departed from the vulgar 
 view. 
 
 But if I venture to go beyond all possible experi- 
 ence with my notions of space and time, which I can- 
 not refrain from doing if I proclaim them qualities 
 inherent in things in themselves (for what should pre- 
 vent me from letting them hold good of the same 
 things, even though my senses might be different, and 
 unsuited to them?), then a grave error may arise due 
 to illusion, for thus I would proclaim to be universally 
 valid what is merely a subjective condition of the in- 
 tuition of things and sure only for all objects of sense, 
 viz., for all possible experience; I would refer this 
 condition to things in themselves, and do not limit it 
 to the conditions of experience. 
 
 My doctrine of the ideality of space and of time, 
 therefore, far from reducing the whole sensible world 
 to mere illusion, is the only means of securing the ap- 
 plication of one of the most important cognitions (that 
 which mathematics propounds a priori') to actual ob- 
 jects, and of preventing its being regarded as mere 
 illusion. For without this observation it would be 
 quite impossible to make out whether the intuitions 
 of space and time, which we borrow from no experi- 
 ence, and which yet lie in our representation a priori, 
 are not mere phantasms of our brain, to which objects 
 do not correspond, at least not adequately, and con- 
 sequently, whether we have been able to show its un- 
 questionable validity with regard to all the objects of 
 the sensible world just because they are mere appear- 
 ances. 
 
 Secondly, though these my principles make ap- 
 pearances of the representations of the senses, they 
 are so far from turning the truth of experience into 
 
48 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 mere illusion, that they are rather the only means of 
 preventing the transcendental illusion, by which meta- 
 physics has hitherto been deceived, leading to the 
 childish endeavor of catching at bubbles, because ap- 
 pearances, which are mere representations, were taken 
 for things in themselves. Here originated the remark- 
 able event of the antimony of Reason which I shall 
 mention by and by, and which is destroyed by the 
 single observation, that appearance, as long as it is 
 employed in experience, produces truth, but the mo- 
 ment it transgresses the bounds of experience, and 
 consequently becomes transcendent, produces nothing 
 but illusion. 
 
 Inasmuch, therefore, as I leave to things as we 
 obtain them by the senses their actuality, and only 
 limit our sensuous intuition of these things to this, 
 that they represent in no respect, not even in the 
 pure intuitions of space and of time, anything more 
 than mere appearance of those things, but never their 
 constitution in themselves, this is not a sweeping illu- 
 sion invented for nature by me. My protestation too 
 against all charges of idealism is so valid and clear 
 as even to seem superfluous, were there not incompe- 
 tent judges, who, while they would have an old name 
 for every deviation from their perverse though com- 
 mon opinion, and never judge of the spirit of philo- 
 sophic nomenclature, but cling to the letter only, are 
 ready to put their own conceits in the place of well- 
 defined notions, and thereby deform and distort them. 
 I have myself given this my theory the name of tran- 
 scendental idealism, but that cannot authorise any 
 one to confound it either with the empirical idealism 
 of Descartes, (indeed, his was only an insoluble prob- 
 lem, owing to which he thought every one at liberty 
 
HOW IS PURE MATHEMATICS POSSIBLE? 49 
 
 to deny the existence of the corporeal world, because 
 it could never be proved satisfactorily"), or with the 
 mystical and visionary idealism of Berkeley, against 
 which and other similar phantasms our Critique con- 
 tains the proper antidote. My idealism concerns not 
 the existence of things (the doubting of which, how- 
 ever, constitutes idealism in the ordinary sense), since 
 it never came into my head to doubt it, but it con- 
 cerns the sensuous representation of things, to which 
 space and time especially belong. Of these [viz., 
 space and time], consequently of all appearances in 
 general, I have only shown, that they are neither 
 things (but mere modes of representation), nor deter- 
 minations belonging to things in themselves. But 
 the word "transcendental," which with me means a 
 reference of our cognition, i. e., not to things, but 
 only to the cognitive faculty, was meant to obviate 
 this misconception. Yet rather than give further oc- 
 casion to it by this word, I now retract it, and desire 
 this idealism of mine to be called critical. But if it 
 be really an objectionable idealism to convert actual 
 things (not appearances) into mere representations, 
 by what name shall we call him who conversely 
 changes mere representations to things? It may, I 
 think, be called "dreaming idealism," in contradis- 
 tinction to the former, which may be called "vision- 
 ary," both of which are to be refuted by my transcen- 
 dental, or, better, critical idealism. 
 
SECOND PART OF THE TRANSCEN- 
 DENTAL PROBLEM. 
 
 HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 
 
 §.I4- 
 
 NATURE is the existence of things, so far as it is 
 determined according to universal laws. Should 
 nature signify the existence of things in themselves, 
 we could never cognise it either a priori or a posteriori. 
 Not a priori, for how can we know what belongs to 
 things in themselves, since this never can be done by 
 the dissection of our concepts (in analytical judg- 
 ments)? We do not want to know what is contained 
 in our concept of a thing (for the [concept describes 
 what] belongs to its logical being), but what is in the 
 actuality of the thing superadded to our concept, and 
 by what the thing itself is determined in its existence 
 outside the concept. Our understanding, and the con- 
 ditions on which alone it can connect the determina- 
 tions of things in their existence, do not prescribe 
 any rule to things themselves ; these do not conform 
 to our understanding, but it must conform itself to 
 them ; they must therefore be first given us in order 
 to gather these determinations from them, wherefore 
 they would not be cognised a priori. 
 
 A cognition of the nature of things in themselves 
 a posteriori would be equally impossible. For, if ex- 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 5 1 
 
 perience is to teach us laws, to which the existence 
 of things is subject, these laws, if they regard things 
 in themselves, must belong to them of necessity even 
 outside our experience. But experience teaches us 
 what exists and how it exists, but never that it must 
 necessarily exist so and not otherwise. Experience 
 therefore can never teach us the nature of things in 
 themselves. 
 
 § 15. We nevertheless actually possess a pure sci- 
 ence of nature in which are propounded, a priori and 
 with all the necessity requisite to apodeictical propo- 
 sitions, laws to which nature is subject. I need only 
 call to witness that propaedeutic of natural science 
 which, under the title of the universal Science of Na- 
 ture, precedes all Physics (which is founded upon 
 empirical principles). In it we have Mathematics ap- 
 plied to appearance, and also merely discursive prin- 
 ciples (or those derived from concepts), which con- 
 stitute the philosophical part of the pure cognition of 
 nature. But there are several things in it, which are 
 not quite pure and independent of empirical sources : 
 such as the concept of motion, that of impenetrability 
 (upon which the empirical concept of matter rests), 
 that of inertia, and many others, which prevent its 
 being called a perfectly pure science of nature. Be- 
 sides, it only refers to objects of the external sense, 
 and therefore does not give an example of a universal 
 science of nature, in the strict sense, for such a sci- 
 ence must reduce nature in general, whether it regards 
 the object of the external or that of the internal sense 
 (the object of Physics as well as Psychology), to uni- 
 versal laws. But among the principles of this uni- 
 versal physics there are a few which actually have 
 the required universality; for instance, the proposi- 
 
52 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 tions that "substance is permanent," and that "every 
 event is determined by a cause according to constant 
 laws," etc. These are actually universal laws of na- 
 ture, which subsist completely a priori. There is then 
 in fact a pure science of nature, and the question 
 arises, How is it possible f 
 
 § i6. The word "nature" assumes yet another 
 meaning, which determines the object, whereas in the 
 former sense it only denotes the conformity to law 
 \_Gesetzmdssigkeif\ of the determinations of the exist- 
 ence of things generally. If we consider it maierialiter 
 (i. e., in the matter that forms its objects) "nature is 
 the complex of all the objects of experience." And 
 with this only are we now concerned, for besides, 
 things which can never be objects of experience, if 
 they must be cognised as to their nature, would oblige 
 us to have recourse to concepts whose meaning could 
 never be given in concreto (by any example of possible 
 experience). Consequently we must form for ourselves 
 a list of concepts of their nature, the reality whereof 
 (i. e., whether they actually refer to objects, or are 
 mere creations of thought) could never be determined. 
 The cognition of what cannot be an object of fexperi- 
 ence would be hyperphysical, and with things hyper- 
 physical we are here not concerned, but only with 
 the cognition of nature, the actuality of which can be 
 confirmed by experience, though it [the cognition of 
 nature] is possible a priori and precedes all experi- 
 ence. 
 
 § 17. The formal [aspect] of nature in this nar- 
 rower sense is therefore the conformity to law of all 
 the objects of experience, and so far as it is cognised 
 a priori, their necessary conformity. But it has just 
 been shown that the laws of nature can never be cog- 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 53 
 
 nised a priori in objects so far as they are considered 
 not in reference to possible experience, but as things 
 in themselves. And our inquiry here extends not to 
 things in themselves (the properties of which we pass 
 by), but to things as objects of possible experience, 
 and the complex of these is what we properly desig- 
 nate as nature. And now I ask, when the possibility 
 of a cognition of nature a priori is in question, whether 
 it is better to arrange the problem thus : How can 
 we cognise a priori that things as objects of experi- 
 ence necessarily conform to law? or thus: How is it 
 possible to cognise a priori the necessary conformity 
 to law of experience itself as regards all its objects 
 generally ? 
 
 Closely considered, the solution of the problem, 
 represented in either way, amounts, with regard to the 
 pure cognition of nature (which is the point of the 
 question at issue), entirely to the same thing. For 
 the subjective laws, under which alone an empirical 
 cognition of things is possible, hold good of these 
 things, as objects of possible experience (not as things 
 in themselves, which are not considered here). Either 
 of the following statements means quite the same : 
 
 A judgment of observation can never rank as ex- 
 perience, without the law, that "whenever an event 
 is observed, it is always referred to. some antecedent, 
 which it follows according to a universal rule." 
 
 "Everything, of which experience teaches that it 
 happens, must have a cause." 
 
 It is, however, more commendable to choose the 
 first formula. For we can a priori and previous to all 
 given objects have a cognition of those conditions, on 
 which alone experience is possible, but never of the 
 laws to which things may in themselves be subject. 
 
54 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 without reference to possible experience. We cannot 
 therefore study the nature of things a priori otherwise 
 than by investigating the conditions and the universal 
 (though subjective) laws, under which alone such a 
 cognition as experience (as to mere form) is possible, 
 and we determine accordingly the possibility of things, 
 as objects of experience. For if I should choose the 
 second formula, and seek the conditions a priori, on 
 which nature as an object of experience is possible, I 
 might easily fall into error, and fancy that I was speak- 
 ing of nature as a thing in itself, and then move round 
 in endless circles, in a vain search for laws concern- 
 ing things of which nothing is given me. 
 
 Accordingly we shall here be concerned with ex- 
 perience only, and the universal conditions of its pos- 
 sibility which are given a priori. Thence we shall 
 determine nature as the whole object of all possible 
 experience. I think it will be understood that I here 
 do not mean the rules of the observation of a nature 
 that is already given, for these already presuppose 
 experience. I do not mean how (through experience) 
 we can study the laws of nature ; for these would not 
 then be laws a priori, and would yield us no pure sci- 
 ence of nature ; but [I mean to ask] how the condi- 
 tions a priori of the possibility of experience are at 
 the same time the sources from which all the uni- 
 versal laws of nature must be derived. 
 
 § i8. In the first place we must state that, while 
 all judgments of experience {_Erfahrungsurtheile) are 
 empirical (i. e., have their ground in immediate sense- 
 perception), vice versa, all empirical judgments {em- 
 pirische Uriheile) are not judgments of experience, 
 but, besides the empirical, and in general besides 
 what is given to the sensuous intuition, particular 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 55 
 
 concepts must yet be superadded — concepts which 
 have their origin quite a priori in the pure under- 
 standing, and under which every perception must be 
 first of all subsumed and then by their means changed 
 into experience.^ 
 
 Empirical judgments, so far as they have objec- 
 - tive validity, are judgments of experience ; but those 
 which are only subjectively valid, I name mere judg- 
 ments of perception. The latter require no pure con- 
 cept of the understanding, but only the logical con- 
 nexion of perception in a thinking subject. But the 
 former always require, besides the representation of 
 the sensuous intuition, particular concepts originally 
 begotten in the understanding, which produce the objec- 
 tive validity of the judgment of experience. 
 
 All our judgments are at first merely judgments of 
 perception ; they hold good only for us (i. e. , for our 
 subject), and we do not till afterwards give them a 
 new reference (to an object), and desire that they 
 shall always hold good for us and in the same way 
 for everybody else ; for when a judgment agrees with 
 an object, all judgments concerning the same object 
 must likewise agree among themselves, and thus the 
 objective validity of the judgment of experience sig- 
 nifies nothing else than its necessary universality of 
 application. And conversely when we have reason 
 to consider a judgment necessarily universal (which 
 never depends upon perception, but upon the pure 
 concept of the understanding, under which the per- 
 ception is subsumed), we must consider it objective 
 
 1 Empirical judgmeDts {empirische Urtheile) are either mere statements 
 of fact, viz;, records of a perception, or statements of a natural law, implying 
 a causal connexion between two facts. The former Kant calls "judgments 
 of perception" {WahrnehmungsurtheiU), the latter "judgments of experi- 
 ence ' ' {Erfahrungsuriheile), — Ed. 
 
56 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 also, that is, that it expresses not merely a reference 
 of our perception to a subject, but a quality of the 
 object. For there would be no reason for the judg- 
 ments of other men necessarily agreeing v/ith mine, if 
 it were not the unity of the object to which they all 
 refer, and with which they accord ; hence they must 
 all agree with one another. 
 
 § ig. Therefore objective validity and necessary 
 universality (for everybody) are equivalent terms, and 
 though we do not know the object in itself, yet when 
 we consider a judgment as universal, and also neces- 
 sary, we understand it to have objective validity. By 
 this judgment we cognise the object (though it remains 
 unknown as it is in itself) by the universal and neces- 
 sary connexion of the given perceptions. As this is 
 the case with all objects of sense, judgments of expe- 
 rience take their objective validity not from the im- 
 mediate cognition of the object (which is impossible), 
 but from the condition of universal validity in empiri- 
 cal judgments, which, as already said, never rests 
 upon empirical, or, in short, sensuous conditions, but 
 upon a pure concept of the understanding. The ob- 
 ject always remains unknown in itself ; but when by 
 the concept of the understanding the connexion of the 
 representations of the object, which are given to our 
 sensibility, is determined as universally valid, the ob- 
 ject is determined by this relation, and it is the judg- 
 ment that is objective. 
 
 To illustrate the matter : When we say, "the room 
 is warm, sugar sweet, and wormwood bitter, "^ — we 
 
 1 1 freely grant that these examptes do not represent such judgments of 
 perception as ever could become judgments of experience, even though a 
 concept of the understanding were superadded, because they refer merely 
 to feeling, which everybody knows to be merely subjective, and which of 
 course can never be attributed to the object, and consequently never become 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 57 
 
 have only subjectively valid judgments. I do not at 
 all expect that I or any other person shall always find 
 it as I now do; each of these sentences only expresses 
 a relation of two sensations to the same subject, to 
 myself, and that only in my present state of percep- 
 tion ; consequently they are not valid of the object. 
 Such are judgments of perception. Judgments of ex- 
 perience are of quite a different nature. What expe- 
 rience teaches me under certain circumstances, it must 
 always teach me and everybody ; and its validity is 
 not limited to the subject nor to its state at a particu- 
 lar time. Hence I pronounce all such judgments as 
 being objectively valid. For instance, when I say the 
 air is elastic, this judgment is as yet a judgment of 
 perception only — I do nothing but refer two of my 
 sensations to one another. But, if I would have it 
 called a judgment of experience, I require this con- 
 nexion to stand under a condition, which makes it 
 universally valid. I desire therefore that I and every- 
 body else should always connect necessarily the same 
 perceptions under the same circumstances. 
 
 § 20. We must consequently analyse experience 
 in order to see what is contained in this product of 
 the senses and of the understanding, and how the 
 judgment of experience itself is possible. The foun- 
 dation is the intuition of which I become conscious, 
 J. e. , perception {perceptio), which pertains merely to 
 the senses. But in the next place, there are acts of 
 judging (which belong only to the understanding). 
 But this judging may be twofold — first, I may merely 
 
 objective. I only wished to give here an example of a judgment that is 
 merely subjectively valid, containing no ground for universal validity, and 
 thereby for a relation to the object. An example of the judgments of per- 
 ception, which become judgments of experience by superadded concepts of 
 the understanding, will be given in the next note. 
 
58 kant's prolegomena 
 
 compare perceptions and connect them in a particular 
 state of my consciousness ; or, secondly, I may con- 
 nect them in consciousness generally. The former 
 judgment is merely a judgment of perception, and of 
 subjective validity only : it is merely a connexion of 
 perceptions in my mental state, without reference to 
 the object. Hence it is not, as is commonly imagined, 
 enough for experience to compare perceptions and to 
 connect them in consciousness through judgment; 
 there arises no universality and necessity, for which 
 alone judgments can become objectively valid and be 
 called experience. 
 
 Quite another judgment therefore is required be- 
 fore perception can become experience. The given 
 intuition must be subsumed under a concept, which 
 determines the form of judging in general relatively 
 to the intuition, connects its empirical consciousness 
 in consciousness generally, and thereby procures uni- 
 versal validity for empirical judgments. A concept of 
 this nature is a pure a priori concept of the Under- 
 standing, which does nothing but determine for an 
 intuition the general way in which it can be used for 
 judgments. Let the concept be that of cause, then it 
 determines the intuition which is subsumed under it, 
 e. g., that of air, relative to judgments in general, 
 viz., the concept of air serves with regard to its ex- 
 pansion in the relation of antecedent to consequent in 
 a hypothetical judgment. The concept of cause ac- 
 cordingly is a pure concept of the understanding, 
 which is totally disparate from all possible perception, 
 and only serves to determine the representation sub- 
 sumed under it, relatively to judgments in general, 
 and so to make a universally valid judgment possible. 
 
 Before, therefore, a judgment of perception can 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 59 
 
 become a judgment of experience, it is requisite that 
 the perception should be subsumed under some such 
 a concept of the understanding; for instance, air 
 ranks under the concept of causes, which determines 
 our judgment about it in regard to its expansion as 
 hypothetical.^ Thereby the expansion of the air is 
 represented not as merely belonging to the perception 
 of the air in my present state or in several states of 
 mine, or in the state of perception of others, but as 
 belonging to it necessarily. The judgment, "the air 
 is elastic," becomes universally valid, and a judgment 
 of experience, only by certain judgments preceding 
 it, which subsume the intuition of air under the con- 
 cept of cause and effect : and they thereby determine 
 the perceptions not merely as regards one another in 
 me, but relatively to the form of judging in general, 
 which is here hypothetical, and in this way they ren- 
 der the empirical judgment universally valid. 
 
 If aU our synthetical judgments are analysed so 
 far as they are objectively valid, it will be found that 
 they never consist of mere intuitions connected only 
 (as is commonly believed) by comparison into a judg- 
 ment ; but that they would be impossible were not a 
 pure concept of the understanding superadded to the 
 concepts abstracted from intuition, under which con- 
 cept these latter are subsumed, and in this manner 
 only combined into an objectively valid judgment. 
 
 1 As an easier example, we may take the following : ** When the son shines 
 on the stone, it gr<iw5 warm." This judgment, however often I and otheis 
 may have perceived it, is a mere judgment of perception, and contains no 
 necessity; perceptions are only nsnally conjoined in this maimer. Bntif J 
 say, "The son warms the stone," I add to the perception a concept of the 
 nnderstanding, viz., that of canse, which connects with the concept of sun- 
 shine that of heat as a necessary consequence, and the synthetical jndgment 
 becomes of necessity nniversally valid, viz., objective, and is converted from 
 a perception into experience. 
 
6o kant's prolegomena. 
 
 Even the judgments of pure mathematics in their sim- 
 plest axioms are not exempt from this condition. The 
 principle, "a straight line is the shortest between two 
 points," presupposes that the line is subsumed under 
 the concept of quantity, which certainly is no mere 
 intuition, but has its seat in the understanding alone, 
 and serves to determine the intuition (of the line) 
 with regard to the judgments which may be made 
 about it, relatively to their quantity, that is, to plu- 
 rality (a.s judicia plura/iva).^ For under them it is 
 understood that in a given intuition there is contained 
 a plurality of homogenous parts. 
 
 § 21. To prove, then, the possibility of experience 
 so far as it rests upon pure concepts of the understand- 
 ing a priori, we must first represent what belongs to 
 judgments in general and the various functions of the 
 understanding, in a complete table. For the pure con- 
 cepts of the understanding must run parallel to these 
 functions, as such concepts are nothing more than con- 
 cepts of intuitions in general, so far as these are deter- 
 mined by one or other of these functions of judging, 
 in themselves, that is, necessarily and universally. 
 Hereby also the a priori principles of the possibility 
 of all experience, as of an objectively valid empirical 
 cognition, will be precisely determined. For they are 
 nothing but propositions by which all perception is 
 (under certain universal conditions of intuition) sub- 
 sumed under those pure concepts of the understanding. 
 
 IThis name seems preferable to the term ^arizcularia, which is used for 
 these judgments in logic. For the latter implies the idea^that they are not 
 universal. But when I start from unity (in single judgments) and so proceed 
 to universality, I must not [even indirectly and negatively] imply any refer- 
 ence to universality. I think plurality merely without universality, and not 
 the exception from universality. This is necessary, if logical considerations 
 shall form the basis of the pure concepts of the understanding. However, 
 there is no need of making changes in logic. 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 
 
 6i 
 
 Logical Table of Judgments. 
 
 As to Quantity. 
 Universal. 
 Particular. 
 Singular. 
 
 3- 
 As to Relation. 
 Categorical. 
 Hypothetical. 
 Disjunctive. 
 
 As to Quality. 
 
 Affirmative. 
 
 Negative. 
 
 Infinite. 
 
 As to Modality. 
 Problematical, 
 Assertorical. 
 Apodeictical. 
 
 Transcendental Table of the Pure Concepts of the 
 Understanding. 
 
 I. 2. 
 
 As to Quantity. As to Quality. 
 
 Unity (the Measure). Reality. 
 
 Plurality (the Quantity). Negation. 
 
 Totality (the Whole). Limitation. 
 
 3- 
 As to Relation. 
 Substance. 
 Cause. 
 Community. 
 
 As to Modality. 
 Possibility. 
 Existence. 
 Necessity. 
 
 Pure Physiological Table of the Universal Principles of 
 the Science of Nature. 
 
 Axioms of Intuition. 
 
 Anticipations of Perception. 
 
 Analogies of Experience. 
 
 Postulates of Empirical Thinking 
 generally. 
 
62 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 § 2ia. In order to comprise the whole matter in 
 one idea, it is first necessary to remind the reader 
 that we are discussing not the origin of experience, 
 but of that which lies in experience. The former per- 
 tains to empirical psychology, and would even then 
 never be adequately explained without the latter, 
 which belongs to the Critique of cognition, and par- 
 ticularly of the understanding. 
 
 Experience consists of intuitions, which belong to 
 the sensibility, and of judgments, which are entirely 
 a work of the understanding. But the judgments, 
 which the understanding forms alone from sensuous 
 intuitions, are far from being judgments of experience. 
 For in the one case the judgment connects only the 
 perceptions as they are given in the sensuous intui- 
 tion, while in the other the judgments must express 
 what experience in general, and not what the mere 
 perception (which possesses only subjective validity) 
 contains. The judgment of experience must therefore 
 add to the sensuous intuition and its logical connex- 
 ion in a judgment (after it has been rendered univer- 
 sal by comparison) something that determines the 
 synthetical judgment as necessary and therefore as 
 universally valid. This can be nothing else than that 
 concept which represents the intuition as determined 
 in itself with regard to one form of judgment rather 
 than another, viz., a concept of that synthetical unity 
 of intuitions which can only be represented by a given 
 logical function of judgments. 
 
 § 22. The sum of the matter is this : the business 
 of the senses is to intuite — that of the understanding 
 is to think. But thinking is uniting representations 
 in one consciousness. This union originates either 
 merely relative to the subject, and is accidental and 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 63 
 
 subjective, or is absolute, and is necessary or objec- 
 tive. The union of representations in one conscious- 
 ness is judgment. Thinking therefore is the same as 
 judging, or referring representations to judgments in 
 general. Hence judgments are either merely subjec- 
 tive, when representations are referred to a conscious- 
 ness in one subject only, and united in it, or objec- 
 tive, when they are united in a consciousness gener- 
 ally, that is, necessarily. The logical functions of all 
 judgments are but various modes of uniting represen- 
 tations in consciousness. But if they serve for con- 
 cepts, they are concepts of their necessary union in a 
 consciousness, and so principles of objectively valid 
 judgments. This union in a consciousness is either 
 analytical, by identity, or synthetical, by the combi- 
 nation and addition of various representations one to 
 another. Experience consists in the synthetical con- 
 nexion of phenoniena (perceptions) in consciousness, 
 so far as this connexion is necessary. Hence the pure 
 concepts of the understanding are those under which 
 all perceptions must be subsumed ere they can serve 
 for judgments of experience, in which the synthetical 
 unity of the perceptions is represented as necessary 
 and universally valid. ^ 
 
 IBut how does this proposition, "that judgments of experience contain 
 necessity in the synthesis of perceptions," agree with my statement so often 
 before inculcated, that " experience as cognition a posteriori can afford con- 
 tingent judgments only?" When I say that experience teaches me some- 
 thing, 1 mean only the perception that lies in experience, — ^for example, that 
 heat always follows the shining of the sun on a stone; consequently the 
 proposition of experience is always so far accidental. That this heat neces- 
 sarily follows the shining of the sun is contained indeed in the judgment of 
 expierience (by means of the concept of cause], yet is a fact not learned by 
 experfence ; for conversely, experience is first of all generated by this addi- 
 tion of the concept of the understanding (of cause} to perception. How per- 
 ception attains this addition may be seen by referring in the Critique itself 
 to the section on the Transcendental faculty of Judgment [viz., in the first 
 edition, Von dem Schematismus der reitwn Verstandsbegriffe\. 
 
64 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 § 23. Judgments, when considered merely as the 
 condition of the union of given representations in a 
 consciousness, are rules. These rules, so far as they 
 represent the union as necessary, are rules a priori, 
 and so far as they cannot be deduced from higher 
 rules, are fundamental principles. But in regard to 
 the possibility of all experience, merely in relation to 
 the form of thinking in it, no conditions of judgments 
 of experience are higher than those which bring the 
 phenomena, according to the various form of their 
 intuition, under pure concepts of the understanding, 
 and render the empirical judgment objectively valid. 
 These concepts are therefore the a priori principles 
 of possible experience. 
 
 The principles of possible experience are then at 
 the same time universal 'laws of nature, which can be 
 cognised a priori. And thus the problem in our sec- 
 ond question, "How is the pure Science of Nature 
 possible?" is solved. For the system which is re- 
 quired for the form of a science is to be met with in 
 perfection here, because, beyond the above-mentioned 
 formal conditions of all judgments in general offered 
 in logic, no others are possible, and these constitute 
 a logical system. The concepts grounded thereupon, 
 which contain the a priori conditions of all synthetical 
 and necessary judgments, accordingly constitute a 
 transcendental system. Finally the principles, by 
 means of which all phenomena are subsumed under 
 these concepts, constitute a physical' system, that is, 
 a system of nature, which precedes all empirical cog- 
 nition of nature, makes it even possible, and hence 
 
 1 [Kant uses the term physiological in its etymological meaning as " per- 
 taining to the science of physics," i. e., nature in general, not as we use the 
 term now as " pertaining to the functions of the living body." Accordingly 
 it has been translated "physical." — Ed.l 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 65 
 
 may in strictness be denominated the universal and 
 pure science of nature. 
 
 § 24. The first one^ of the physiological principles 
 subsumes all phenomena, as intuitions in space and 
 time, under the concept of Quantity, and is so far a 
 principle of the application of Mathematics to experi- 
 ence. The second one subsumes the empirical ele- 
 ment, viz., sensation, which denotes the real in intui- 
 tions, not indeed directly under the concept of quan- 
 tity, because sensation is not an intuition that contains 
 either space or time, though it places the respective 
 object into both. But still there is between reality 
 (sense-representation) and the zero, or total void of 
 intuition in time, a difference which has a quantity. 
 For between every given degree of light and of dark- 
 ness, between every degree of heat and of absolute 
 cold, between every degree of weight and of absolute 
 lightness, between every degree of occupied space 
 and of totally void space, diminishing degrees can be 
 conceived, in the same manner as between conscious- 
 ness and total unconsciousness (the darkness of a 
 psychological blank) ever diminishing degrees obtain. 
 Hence there is no perception that can prove an abso- 
 lute absence of it ; for instance, no psychological 
 darkness that cannot be considered as a kind of con- 
 sciousness, which is only outbalanced by a stronger 
 consciousness. This occurs in all cases of sensation, 
 and so the understanding can anticipate even sensa- 
 tions, which constitute the peculiar quality of empiri- 
 cal representations (appearances), by means of the 
 principle: "that they all have (consequently that 
 
 IThe three following paragraphs will hardly be understood unless refer- 
 ence be made to what the Critique itself says on the subject of the Principles; 
 they will, however, be of service in giving a general view of the Principles, 
 and in fixing the attention on the main points. 
 
66 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 what is real in all phenomena has) a degree." Here 
 is the second application of mathematics {mathesis in- 
 tensorum) to the science of nature. 
 
 § 25. Anent the relation of appearances merely 
 with a view to their existence, the determination is 
 not mathematical but dynamical, and can never be 
 objectively valid, consequently never fit for experi- 
 ence, if it does not come under a priori principles by 
 which the cognition of experience relative to appear- 
 ances becomes even possible. Hence appearances 
 must be subsumed under the concept of Substance, 
 which is the foundation of all determination of exist- 
 ence, as a concept of the thing itself; or secondly — 
 so far as a succession is found among phenomena, 
 that is, an event — under the concept of an Effect 
 with reference to Cause ; or lastly — so far as coexist- 
 ence is to be known objectively, that is, by a judg- 
 ment of experience — under the concept of Commun- 
 ity (action and reaction). ^ Thus a priori principles 
 form the basis of objectively valid, though empirical 
 judgments, that is, of the possibility of experience so 
 far as it must connect objects as existing in nature. 
 These principles are the proper laws of nature, which 
 may be termed dynamical. 
 
 Finally the cognition of the agreement and con- 
 nexion not only of appearances among themselves in 
 experience, but of their relation to experience in gen- 
 eral, belongs to the judgments of experience. This 
 relation contains either their agreement with the for- 
 mal conditions, which the understanding cognises, or 
 their coherence with the materials of the senses and 
 of perception, or combines both into one concept. 
 Consequently it contains Possibility, Actuality, and 
 
 1 [Kant uses here the equivocal term We<:hselii)irkuHg,—Ed.\ 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 67 
 
 Necessity according to universal laws of nature ; and 
 this constitutes the physical doctrine of method, or 
 the distinction of truth and of hypotheses, and the 
 bounds of the certainty of the latter. 
 
 § 26. The third table of Principles drawn from the 
 nature of the understanding itself after the critical 
 method, shows an inherent perfection, which raises it 
 far above every other table which has hitherto though 
 in vain been tried or may yet be tried by analysing 
 the objects themselves dogmatically. It exhibits all 
 synthetical a priori principles completely and accord- 
 ing to one principle, viz., the faculty of judging in 
 general, constituting the essence of experience as re- 
 gards the understanding, so that we can be certain 
 that there are no more such principles, which affords 
 a satisfaction such as can never be attained by the 
 dogmatical method. Yet is this not all: there is a 
 still greater merit in it. 
 
 We must carefully bear in mind the proof which 
 shows the possibility of this cognition a priori, and at 
 the same time limits all such principles to a condition 
 which must never be lost sight of, if we desire it not 
 to be misunderstood, and extended in use beyond the 
 original sense which the understanding attaches to it. 
 This limit is that they contain nothing but the condi- 
 tions of possible experience in general so far as it is 
 subjected to laws a priori. Consequently I do not 
 say, that things in themselves possess a quantity, that 
 their actuality possesses a degree, their existence a 
 connexion of accidents in a substance, etc. This no- 
 body can prove, because such a synthetical connexion 
 from mere concepts, without any reference to sensu- 
 ous intuition on the one side, or connexion of it in a 
 possible experience on the other, is absolutely impos- 
 
68 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 sible. The essential limitation of the concepts in 
 these principles then is : That all things stand neces- 
 sarily a priori under the afore-mentioned conditions, 
 as objects of experience only. 
 
 Hence there follows secondly a specifically pecu- 
 liar mode of proof of these principles : they are not 
 directly referred to appearances and to their relations, 
 but to the possibility of experience, of which appear- 
 ances constitute the matter only, not the form. Thus 
 they are referred to objectively and universally valid 
 synthetical propositions, in which we distinguish 
 judgments of experience from those of perception. 
 This takes place because appearances, as mere intui- 
 tions, occupying a part of space and time, come un- 
 der the concept of Quantity, which unites their multi- 
 plicity a priori according to rules synthetically. Again, 
 so far as the perception contains, besides intuition, 
 sensibility, and between the latter and nothing (i. e., 
 the total disappearance of sensibility), there is an 
 ever- decreasing transition, it is apparent that that 
 which is in appearances must have a degree, so far 
 as it (viz., the perception) does not itself occupy 
 any part of space or of time.^ Still the transition to 
 actuality from empty time or empty space is only 
 possible in time ; consequently though sensibility, as 
 
 iHeat and light are in a small space just as large as to degree as in a 
 large one ; in like manner the internal representations, pain, consciousness 
 in general, whether they last a short or a long time, need not vary as to the 
 degree. Hence the quantity is here in a point and in a moment just as great 
 as in any space or time however great. Degrees are therefore capable of in- 
 crease, but not in intuition, rather in mere sensation (or the quantity of the 
 degree of an intuition). Hence they can only be estimated quantitatively by 
 the relation of x to o, viz., by their capability of decreasing by infinite inter- 
 mediate degrees to disappearance, or of increasing from naught through in- 
 finite gradations to a determinate sensation in a certain time. Quantitas 
 qualitatis est gradiis [i. e., the degrees of quality must be measured by 
 equality]. 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 69 
 
 the quality of empirical intuition, can never be cog- 
 nised a priori, by its specific difference from other 
 sensibilities, yet it can, in a possible experience in 
 general, as a quantity of perception be intensely dis- 
 tinguished from every other similar perception. Hence 
 the application of mathematics to nature, as regards 
 the sensuous intuition by which nature is given to us, 
 becomes possible and is thus determined. 
 
 Above all, the reader must pay attention to the 
 mode of proof of the principles which occur under 
 the title of Analogies of experience. For these do 
 not refer to the genesis of intuitions, as do the prin- 
 ciples of applied mathematics, but to the connexion 
 of their existence in experience ; and this can be 
 nothing but the determination of their existence in 
 time according to necessary laws, under which alone 
 the connexion is objectively valid, and thus becomes 
 experience. The proof therefore does not turn on 
 the synthetical unity in the connexion of things in 
 themselves, but merely of perceptions, and of these 
 not in regard to their matter, but to the determination 
 of time and of the relation of their existence in it, ac- 
 cording to universal laws. If the empirical determi- 
 nation in relative time is indeed objectively valid (i. e., 
 experience), these universal laws contain the neces- 
 sary determination of existence in time generally (viz., 
 according to a rule of the understanding a priori"). 
 
 In these Prolegomena I cannot further descant on 
 the subject, but my reader (who has probably been 
 long accustomed to consider experience a mere em- 
 pirical synthesis of perceptions, and hence not con- 
 sidered that it goes much beyond them, as it imparts 
 to empirical judgments universal validity, and for 
 that purpose requires a pure and a priori unity of the 
 
70 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 understanding) is recommended to pay special atten- 
 tion to this distinction of experience from a mere ag- 
 gregate of perceptions, and to judge the mode of proof 
 from this point of view. 
 
 § 27. Now we are prepared to remove Hume's 
 doubt. He justly maintains, that we cannot compre- 
 hend by reason the possibility of Causality, that is, of 
 the reference of the existence of one thing to the ex- 
 istence of another, which is necessitated by the for- 
 mer. I add, that we comprehend just as little the 
 concept of Subsistence, that is, the necessity that at 
 the foundation of the existence of things there lies a 
 subject which cannot itself be a predicate of any other 
 thing ; nay, we cannot even form a notion of the pos- 
 sibility of such a thing (though we can point out ex- 
 amples of its use in experience) . The very same in- 
 comprehensibility affects the Community of things, as 
 we cannot comprehend how from the state of one 
 thing an inference to the state of quite another thing 
 beyond it, and vice versa, can be drawn, and how sub- 
 stances which have each their own separate existence 
 should depend upon one another necessarily. But I 
 am very far from holding these concepts to be derived 
 merely from experience, and the necessity represented 
 in them, to be imaginary and a mere illusion produced 
 in us by long habit. On the contrary, I have amply 
 shown, that they and the theorems derived from them 
 are firmly established a priori, or before all experience, 
 and have their undoubted objective value, though 
 only with regard to experience. 
 
 § 28. Though I have no notion of such a connex- 
 ion of things in themselves, that they can either exist 
 as substances, or act as causes, or stand in commun- 
 ity with others (as parts of a real whole), and I can 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 7 1 
 
 just as little conceive such properties in appearances 
 as such (because those concepts contain nothing that 
 lies in the appearances, but only what the under- 
 standing alone must think) : we have yet a notion of 
 such a connexion of representations in our under- 
 standing, and in judgments generally; consisting in 
 this that representations appear in one sort of judg- 
 ments as subject in relation to predicates, in another 
 as reason in relation to consequences, and in a third 
 as parts, which constitute together a total possible 
 cognition. Besides we cognise a priori that without 
 considering the representation of an object as deter- 
 mined in some of these respects, we can have no valid 
 cognition of the object, and, if we should occupy our- 
 selves about the object in itself, there is no possible 
 attribute, by which I could know that it is determined 
 under any of these aspects, that is, under the concept 
 either of substance, or of cause, or (in relation to 
 other substances) of community, for I have no notion 
 of the possibility of such a connexion of existence. 
 But the question is not how things in themselves, but 
 how the empirical cognition of things is determined, 
 as regards the above aspects of judgments in general, 
 that is, how things, as objects of experience, can and 
 shall be subsumed under these concepts of the under- 
 standing. And then it is clear, that I completely com- 
 prehend not only the possibility, but also the neces- 
 sity of subsuming all phenomena under these concepts, 
 that is, of using them for principles of the possibility 
 of experience. 
 
 § 29. When making an experiment with Hume's 
 problematical concept (his crux meiaphysicorum) , the 
 concept of cause, we have, in the first place, given 
 a priori, by means of logic, the form of a conditional 
 
72 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 judgment in general, i. e., we have one given cogni- 
 tion as antecedent and another as consequence. But 
 it is possible, that in perception we may meet with a 
 rule of relation, which runs thus : that a certain phe- 
 nomenon is constantly followed by another (though 
 not conversely), and this is a case for me to use the 
 hypothetical judgment, and, for instance, to say, if 
 the sun shines Jong enough upon a body, it grows 
 warm. Here there is indeed as yet no necessity of 
 connexion, or concept of cause. But I proceed and 
 say, that if this proposition, which is merely a subjec- 
 tive connexion of perceptions, is to be a judgment of 
 experience, it must be considered as necessary and 
 universally valid. Such a proposition would be, "the 
 sun is by its light the cause of heat. " The empirical 
 rule is now considered as a law, and as valid not 
 merely of appearances but valid of them for the pur- 
 poses of a possible experience which requires univer- 
 sal and therefore necessarily valid rules. I therefore 
 easily comprehend the concept of cause, as a concept 
 necessarily belonging to the mere form of experience, 
 and its possibility as a synthetical union of percep- 
 tions in consciousness generally ; but I do not at all 
 comprehend the possibility of a thing generally as a 
 cause, because the concept of cause denotes a condi- 
 tion not at all belonging to things, but to experience. 
 It is nothing in fact but an objectively valid cognition 
 of appearances and of their succession, so far as the 
 antecedent can be conjoined with the consequent ac- 
 cording to the rule of hypothetical judgments. 
 
 • § 30. Hence if the pure concepts of the under- 
 standing do not refer to objects of experience but to 
 things in themselves {noumend), they have no signifi- 
 cation whatever. They serve, as it were, only to de- 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 73 
 
 cipher appearances, that we may be able to read them 
 as experience. The principles which arise from their 
 reference to the sensible world, only serve our under- 
 standing for empirical use. Beyond this they are 
 arbitrary combinations, without objective reality, and 
 we can neither cognise their possibility a priori, nor 
 verify their reference to objects, let alone make it in- 
 telligible by any example ; because examples can only 
 be borrowed from some possible experience, conse- 
 quently the objects of these concepts can be found 
 nowhere but in a possible experience. 
 
 This complete (though to its originator unex- 
 pected) solution of Hume's problem rescues for the 
 pure concepts of the understanding their a priori ori- 
 gin, and for the universal laws of nature their valid- 
 ity, as laws of the understanding, yet in such a way as 
 to limit their use to experience, because their possi- 
 bility depends solely on the reference of the under- 
 standing to experience, but with a completely re- 
 versed mode of connexion which never occurred to 
 Hume, not by deriving them from experience, but by 
 deriving experience from them. 
 
 This is therefore the result of all our foregoing in- 
 quiries : <' All synthetical principles a priori are noth- 
 ing more than principles of possible experience, and 
 can never be referred to things in themselves, but to 
 appearances as objects of experience. And hence 
 pure mathematics as well as a pure science of nature 
 can never be referred to anything more than mere 
 appearances, and can only represent either that which 
 makes experience generally possible, or else that 
 which, as it is derived from these principles, must 
 always be capable of being represented in some pos- 
 sible experience." 
 
74 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 § 31. And thus we have at last something definite, 
 upon which to depend in all metaphj'sical enterprises, 
 which have hitherto, boldly enough but always at 
 random, attempted everything without discrimination. 
 That the aim of their exertions should be so near, 
 struck neither the dogmatical thinkers nor those who, 
 confident in their supposed sound common sense, 
 started with concepts and principles of pure reason 
 (which were legitimate and natural, but destined for 
 mere empirical use) in quest of fields of knowledge, 
 to which they neither knew nor could know any de- 
 terminate bounds, because they had never reflected 
 nor were able to reflect on the nature or even on the 
 possibility of such a pure understanding. 
 
 Many a naturalist of pure reason (by which I mean 
 the man who believes he can decide in matters of 
 metaphysics without any science) may pretend, that 
 he long ago by the prophetic spirit of his sound sense, 
 not only suspected, but knew and comprehended, 
 what is here propounded with so much ado, or, if he 
 likes, with prolix and pedantic pomp : "that with all 
 our reason we can never reach beyond the field of ex- 
 perience." But when he is questioned about his ra- 
 tional principles individually, he must grant, that 
 there are many of them which he has not taken from 
 experience, and which are therefore independent of it 
 and valid a priori. How then and on what grounds 
 will he restrain both himself and the dogmatist, who 
 makes use of these concepts and principles beyond 
 all possible experience, because they are recognised 
 to be independent of it? And even he, this adept in 
 sound sense, in spite of all his assumed and cheaply 
 ■ acquired wisdom, is not exempt from wandering in- 
 advertently beyond objects of experience into the field 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 75 
 
 of chimeras. He is often deeply enough involved in 
 them, though in announcing everything as mere prob- 
 ability, rational conjecture, or analogy, he gives by 
 his popular language a color to his groundless pre- 
 tensions. 
 
 § 32. Since the oldest days of philosophy inquirers 
 into pure reason have conceived, besides the things 
 of sense, or appearances (phenomena), which make 
 up the sensible world, certain creations of the under- 
 standing ( Verstandeswesen), called noumena, which 
 should constitute an intelligible world. And as ap- 
 pearance and illusion were by those men identified (a 
 thing which we may well excuse in an undeveloped 
 epoch), actuality was only conceded to the creations 
 of thought. 
 
 And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense 
 as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are 
 based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this 
 thing in its internal constitution, but only know its 
 appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are 
 affected by this unknown something. The under- 
 standing therefore, by assuming appearances, grants 
 the existence of things in themselves also, and so far 
 we may say, that the representation of such things as 
 form the basis of phenomena, consequently of mere 
 creations of the understanding, is not only admissible, 
 but unavoidable. 
 
 Our critical deduction by no means excludes things 
 of that sort (noumena), but rather limits the prin- 
 ciples of the Aesthetic (the science of the sensibility) 
 to this, that they shall not extend to all things, as 
 everything would then be turned into mere appear- 
 ance, but that they shall only hold good of objects of 
 possible experience. Hereby then objects of the un- 
 
76 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 derstanding are granted, but with the inculcation of 
 this rule which admits of no exception: "that we 
 neither know nor can know anything at all definite of 
 these pure objects of the understanding, because our 
 pure concepts of the understanding as well as our 
 pure intuitions extend to nothing but objects of pos- 
 sible experience, consequently to mere things of sense, 
 and as soon as we leave this sphere these concepts 
 retain no meaning whatever." 
 
 § 33. There is indeed something seductive in our 
 pure concepts of the understanding, which tempts us 
 to a transcendent use, — a use which transcends all 
 possible experience. Not only are our concepts of 
 substance, of power, of action, of reality, and others, 
 quite independent of experience, containing nothing 
 of sense appearance, and so apparently applicable to 
 things in themselves (noumena), but, what strength- 
 ens this conjecture, they contain a necessity of deter- 
 mination in themselves, which experience never at- 
 tains. The concept of cause implies a rule, according 
 to which one state follows another necessarily ; but 
 experience can only show us, that one state of things 
 often, or at most, commonly, follows another, and 
 therefore affords neither strict universality, nor neces- 
 sity. 
 
 Hence the Categories seem to have a deeper 
 meaning and import than can be exhausted by their 
 empirical use, and so the understanding inadvertently 
 adds for itself to the house of experience a much 
 more extensive wing, which it fills with nothing but 
 creatures of thought, without ever observing that it 
 has transgressed with its otherwise lawful concepts 
 the bounds of their use. 
 
 § 34. Two important, and even indispensable, 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 77 
 
 though very dry, investigations had therefore become 
 indispensable in the Critique of Pure Reason,- — viz., 
 the two chapters "Vom Schematismus der reinen 
 Verstandsbegriffe, " and "Vom Grunde der Unter- 
 scheidung aller Verstandesbegriffe uberhaupt in Pha- 
 nomena und Noumena. " In the former it is shown, 
 that the senses furnish not the pure concepts of the 
 understanding in concreto, but only the schedule for 
 their use, and that the object conformable to it occurs 
 only in experience (as the product of the understand- 
 ing from materials of the sensibility). In the latter it 
 is shown, that, although our pure concepts of the 
 understanding and our principles are independent of 
 experience, and despite of the apparently greater 
 sphere of their use, still nothing whatever can be 
 thought by them beyond the field of experience, be- 
 cause they can do nothing but merely determine the 
 logical form of the judgment relatively to given intui- 
 tions. But as there is no intuition at all beyond the 
 field of the sensibility, these pure concepts, as they 
 cannot possibly be exhibited in concreto, are void of 
 all meaning; consequently all these noumena, to- 
 gether with their complex, the intelligible world, ^ are 
 nothing but representation of a problem, of which the 
 object in itself is possible, but the solution, from the 
 nature of our understanding, totally impossible. For 
 our understanding is not a faculty of intuition, but of 
 
 IWe speak of the "intelligible world," not (as the usual expression is) 
 "intellectual world." For cognitions are intellectual through the under- 
 standing, and refer to our world of sense also ; but objects, so far as they 
 can be represented merely by the understanding, and to which none of our 
 sensiljle intuitions can refer, are termed "intelligible." But as somepos. 
 sible intuition must correspond to every object, we would have to assume an 
 understanding that intuites things immediately \ but of such we have not the 
 least notion, nor have we of the things of the understanding [Verstandes- 
 wesen], to which it should be applied. 
 
78 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 the connexion of given intuitions in experience. Ex- 
 perience must therefore contain all the objects for our 
 concepts ; but beyond it no concepts have any signifi- 
 cance, as there is no intuition that might ofier them a 
 foundation. 
 
 § 35. The imagination may perhaps be forgiven 
 for occasional vagaries, and for not keeping carefully 
 within the limits of experience, since it gains life and 
 vigor by such flights, and since it is always easier to 
 moderate its boldness, than to stimulate its languor. 
 But the understanding which ought to think can never 
 be forgiven for indulging in vagaries; for we depend 
 upon it alone for assistance to set bounds, when nec- 
 essary, to the vagaries of the imagination. 
 
 But the understanding begins its aberrations very 
 innocently and modestly. It first elucidates the ele- 
 mentary cognitions, which inhere in it prior to all ex- 
 perience, but yet must always have their application 
 in experience. It gradually drops these limits, and 
 what is there to prevent it, as it has quite freely de- 
 rived its principles from itself? And then it proceeds 
 first to newly-imagined powers in nature, then to be- 
 ings outside nature; in short to a world, for whose 
 construction the materials cannot be wanting, because 
 fertile fiction furnishes them abundantly, and though 
 not confirmed, is never refuted, by experience. This 
 is the reason that young thinkers are so partial to 
 metaphysics of the truly dogmatical kind, and often 
 sacrifice to it their time and their talents, which might 
 be otherwise better employed. 
 
 But there is no use in trying to moderate these 
 fruitless endeavors of pure reason by all manner. of 
 cautions as to the difficulties of solving questions so 
 occult, by complaints of the limits of our reason, and 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 7g 
 
 by degrading our assertions into mere conjectures. 
 For if their impossibility is not distinctly shown, and 
 reason's cognition of its own essence does not become 
 a true science, in which the field of its right use is 
 distinguished, so to say, with mathematical certainty 
 from that of its worthless and idle use, these fruitless 
 efforts will never be abandoned for good. 
 
 § 36. How is Nature itself possible? 
 
 This question — the highest point that transcenden- 
 tal philosophy can ever reach, and to which, as its 
 boundary and completion, it must proceed — properly 
 contains two questions. 
 
 First : How is nature at all possible in the mate- 
 rial sense, by intuition, considered as the totality of 
 appearances; how are space, time, and that which 
 fills both — the object of sensation, in general possible? 
 The answer is : By means of the constitution of our 
 Sensibility, according to which it is specifically affected 
 by objects, which are in themselves unknown to it, 
 and totally distinct from those phenomena. This an- 
 swer is given in the Critique itself in the transcenden- 
 tal Aesthetic, and in these Prolegomena by the solution 
 of the first general problem. 
 
 Secondly : How is nature possible in the formal 
 sense, as the totality of the rules, under which all 
 phenomena must come, in order to be thought as 
 connected in experience? The answer must be this: 
 It is only possible by means of the constitution of our 
 Understanding, according to which all the above rep- 
 resentations of the sensibility are necessarily referred 
 to a consciousness, and by which the peculiar way in 
 which we think (viz. , by rules'), and hence experience 
 also, are possible, but must be clearly distinguished 
 
8o kant's prolegomena. 
 
 from an insight into the objects in themselves. This 
 answer is given in the Critique itself in the transcen- 
 dental Logic, and in these Prolegomena, in the course 
 of the solution of the second main problem. 
 
 But how this peculiar property of our sensibility 
 itself is possible, or that of our understanding and of 
 the apperception which is necessarily its basis and 
 that of all thinking, cannot be further analysed or an- 
 swered, because it is of them that we are in need for 
 all our answers and for all our thinking about objects. 
 
 There are many laws of nature, which we can only 
 know by means of experience ; but conformity to law ' 
 in the connexion of appearances, i. e., in nature in 
 general, we cannot discover by any experience, be- 
 cause experience itself requires laws which are a priori 
 at the basis of its possibility. 
 
 The possibility of experience in general is there- 
 fore at the same time the universal law of nature, and 
 the principles of the experience are the very laws of 
 nature. For we do not know nature but as the total- 
 ity of appearances, i. e. , of representations in us, and 
 hence we can only derive the laws of its connexion 
 from the principles of their connexion in us, that is, 
 from the conditions of their necessary union in con- 
 sciousness, which constitutes the possibility of expe- 
 rience. 
 
 Even the main proposition expounded throughout 
 this section — that universal laws of nature can be dis- 
 tinctly cognised a priori — leads naturally to the prop- 
 osition : that the highest legislation of nature must 
 lie in ourselves, i. e., in our understanding, and that 
 we must not seek the universal laws of nature in na- 
 ture by means of experience, but conversely must seek 
 nature, as to its universal conformity to law, in the 
 
HOW IS THE SCIKNCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 8l 
 
 conditions of the possibility of experience, which lie 
 in our sensibility and in our understanding. For how 
 were it otherwise possible to know a priori these laws, 
 as they are not rules of analytical cognition, but truly 
 synthetical extensions of it? 
 
 Such a necessary agreement of the principles of 
 possible experience with the laws of the possibility of 
 nature, can only proceed from one of two reasons : 
 either these laws are drawn from nature by means of 
 experience, or conversely nature is derived from the 
 laws of the possibility of experience in general, and 
 is quite the same as the mere universal conformity 
 to law of the latter. The former is self-contradic- 
 tory, for the universal laws of nature can and must be 
 cognised a priori (that is, independent of all experi- 
 ence), and be the foundation of all empirical use of 
 the understanding; the latter alternative therefore 
 alone remains.' 
 
 But we must distinguish the empirical laws of na- 
 ture, which always presuppose particular perceptions, 
 from the pure or universal laws of nature, which, 
 without being based on particular perceptions, con- 
 tain merely the conditions of their necessary union 
 in experience. In relation to the latter, nature and 
 possible experience are quite the same, and as the 
 conformity to law here depends upon the necessary 
 connexion of appearances in experience (without 
 which we cannot cognise any object whatever in the 
 sensible world), consequently upon the original laws 
 
 1 Crusius alone thought of a compromise : that a Spirit,, who can neither 
 err nor deceive, implanted these laws in us originally. But since false prin- 
 ciples often intrude themselves, as indeed the very system of this man shows 
 in not a few examples, we are involved in difBculties as to the use of such a 
 principle in the absence of sure criteria to distinguish the genuine origin 
 from the spurious, as we never can know certainly what the Spirit of truth 
 or the father of lies may have instilled into us. 
 
82 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 of the understanding, it seems at first strange, but is 
 not the less certain, to say : 
 
 The understanding does not derive its laws {a priori') 
 from, but prescribes them to, nature. 
 
 § 37. We shall illustrate this seemingly bold prop- 
 osition by an example, which will show, that laws, 
 which we discover in objects of sensuous intuition 
 (especially when these laws are cognised as neces- 
 sary), are commonly held by us to be such as have 
 been placed there by the understanding, in spite of 
 their being similar in all points to the laws of nature, 
 which we ascribe to experience. 
 
 § 38. If we consider the properties of the circle, 
 by which this figure combines so many arbitrary de- 
 terminations of space in itself, at once in a universal 
 rule, we cannot avoid attributing a constitution (eine 
 Natur) to this geometrical thing. Two right lines, 
 for example, which intersect one another and the 
 circle, howsoever they may be drawn, are always di- 
 vided so that the rectangle constructed with the seg- 
 ments of the one is equal to that constructed with the 
 segments of the other. The question now is : Does 
 this law lie in the circle or in the understanding, that 
 is. Does this figure, independently of the understand- 
 ing, contain in itself the ground of the law, or does 
 the understanding, having constructed according to 
 its concepts (according to the quality of the radii) the 
 figure itself, introduce into it this law of the chords 
 cutting one another in geometrical proportion? When 
 we follow the proofs of this law, we soon perceive, 
 that it can only be derived from the condition on 
 which the understanding founds the construction of 
 this figure, and which is that of the equality of the 
 radii. But, if we enlarge this concept, to pursue fur- 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 83 
 
 ther the unity of various properties of geometrical 
 figures under common laws, and consider the circle 
 as a conic section, which of course is subject to the 
 same fundamental conditions of construction as other 
 conic sections, we shall find that all the chords which 
 intersect within the ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola, 
 always intersect so that the rectangles of their seg- 
 ments are not indeed equal, but always bear a con- 
 stant ratio to one another. If we proceed still farther, 
 to the fundamental laws of physical astronomy, we 
 find a physical law of reciprocal attraction diffused 
 over all material nature, the rule of which is: "that it 
 decreases inversely as the square of the distance from 
 each attracting point, i. e. , as the spherical surfaces 
 increase, over which this force spreads," which law 
 seems to be necessarily inherent in the very nature of 
 things, and hence is usually propounded as cognis- 
 able a priori. Simple as the sources of this law are, 
 merely resting upon the relation of spherical surfaces 
 of different radii, its consequences are so valuable 
 with regard to the variety of their agreement and its 
 regularity, that not only are all possible orbits of the 
 celestial bodies conic sections, but such a relation of 
 these orbits to each other results, that no other law 
 of attraction, than that of the inverse square of the 
 distance, can be imagined as fit for a cosmical system. 
 
 Here accordingly is a nature that rests upon laws 
 which the understanding cognises a priori, and chiefly 
 from the universal principles of the determination of 
 space. Now I ask : 
 
 Do the laws of nature lie in space, and does the 
 understanding learn them by merely endeavoring to 
 find out the enormous wealth of meaning that lies in 
 space ; or do they inhere in the understanding and in 
 
84 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 the way in which it determines space according to the 
 conditions of the synthetical unity in which its con- 
 cepts are all centred? 
 
 Space is something so uniform and as to all par- 
 ticular properties so indeterminate, that we should 
 certainly not seek a store of laws of nature in it. 
 Whereas that which determines space to assume the 
 form of a circle or the figures of a cone and a sphere, 
 is the understanding, so far as it contains the ground 
 of the unity of their constructions. 
 
 The mere universal form of intuition, called space, 
 must therefore be the substratum of all intuitions de- 
 terminable to particular objects, and in it of course 
 the condition of the possibility and of the variety of 
 these intuitions lies. But the unity of the objects is 
 entirely determined by the understanding, and on 
 conditions which lie in its own nature ; and thus the 
 understanding is the origin of the universal order of 
 nature, in that it comprehends all appearances under 
 its own laws, and thereby first constructs, a priori, 
 experience (as to its form), by means of which what- 
 ever is to be cognised only by experience, is necessa- 
 rily subjected to its laws. For we are not now con- 
 cerned with the nature of things in themselves, which 
 is independent of the conditions both of our sensi- 
 bility and our understanding, but with nature, as an 
 object of possible experience, and in this case the 
 understanding, whilst it makes experience possible, 
 thereby insists that the sensuous world is either not 
 an object of experience at all, or must be nature [viz., 
 an existence of things, determined according to uni- 
 versal laws']. 
 
 IThe definition of nature is given in tlie beginning of the Second Part of 
 the ''Transcendental Problem," in § 14, 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 85 
 
 APPENDIX TO THE PURE SCIENCE OF NATURE. 
 
 § 39- Of the System of the Categories. 
 
 There can be nothing more desirable to a philos- 
 opher, than to be able to derive the scattered multi- 
 plicity of the concepts or the principles, which had 
 occurred to him in concrete use, from a principle 
 a priori, and to unite everything in this way in one 
 cognition. He formerly only believed that those 
 things, which remained after a certain abstraction, 
 and seemed by comparison among one another to 
 constitute a particular kind of cognitions, were com- 
 pletely collected ; but this was only ,an Aggregate. 
 Now he knows, that just so many, neither more nor 
 less, can constitute the mode of cognition, and per- 
 ceives the necessity of his division, which constitutes 
 comprehension ; and now only he has attained a 
 System. 
 
 To search in our daily cognition for the concepts, 
 which do not rest upon particular experience, and yet 
 occur in all cognition of experience, where they as it 
 were constitute the mere form of connexion, presup- 
 poses neither greater reflexion nor deeper insight, 
 than to detect in a language the rules of the actual 
 use of words generally, and thus to collect elements 
 for a grammar. In fact both researches are very 
 nearly related, even though we are not able to give a 
 reason why each language has just this and no other 
 formal constitution, and still less why an exact number 
 of such formal determinations in general are found 
 in it. 
 
86 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 Aristotle collected ten pure elementary concepts 
 under the name of Categories.^ To these, which are 
 also called predicaments, he found himself obliged 
 afterwards to add five post-predicaments,' some of 
 which however (^prius, simul, and motus) are contained 
 in the former ; but this random collection must be 
 considered (and commended) as a mere hint for future 
 inquirers, not as a regularly developed idea, and hence 
 it has, in the present more advanced state of philoso- 
 phy, been rejected as quite useless. 
 
 After long reflexion on the pure elements of human 
 knowledge (those which contain nothing empirical), I 
 at last succeeded in distinguishing with certainty and 
 in separating the pure elementary notions of the Sen- 
 sibility (space and time) from those of the Under- 
 standing. Thus the 7th, 8th, and gth Categories had 
 to be excluded from the old list. And the others were 
 of no service to me ; because there was no principle 
 [in them], on which the understanding could be inves- 
 tigated, measured in its completion, and all the func- 
 tions, whence its pure concepts arise, determined ex- 
 haustively and with precision. 
 
 But in order to discover such a principle, I looked 
 about for an act of the understanding which comprises 
 all the rest, and is distinguished only by various modi- 
 fications or phases, in reducing the multiplicity of 
 representation to the unity of thinking in general : I 
 found this act of the understanding to consist in judg- 
 ing. Here then the labors of the logicians were ready 
 at hand, though not yet quite free from defects, and 
 with this help I was enabled to exhibit a complete 
 
 "ii. Substantia, z. Qualitas. ^. Quantitas, ^. Relatio, ^, Actio, 6, Passio, 
 7. Quando. 8, Ubi, g. Siiits. 10. Habitus,- 
 
 iOpposiium, Prius. Simul, Motus, Habere. 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 87 
 
 table of the pure functions of the understanding, 
 which are however undetermined in regard to any ob- 
 ject. I finally referred these functions of judging to 
 objects in general, or rather to the condition of deter- 
 mining judgments as objectively valid, and so there 
 arose the pure concepts of the understanding, con- 
 cerning which I could make certain, that these, and 
 this exact number only, constitute our whole cogni- 
 tion of things from pure understanding. I was justi- 
 fied in calling them by their old name, Categories, 
 while I reserved for myself the liberty of adding, un- 
 der the title of "Predicables," a complete list of all 
 the concepts deducible from them, by combinations 
 whether among themselves, or with the pure form of 
 the appearance, i. e., space or time, or with its mat- 
 ter, so far as it is not yet empirically determined (viz. , 
 the object of sensation in general), as soon as a sys- 
 tem of transcendental philosophy should be completed 
 with the construction of which I am engaged in the 
 Critique of Pure Reason itself. 
 
 Now the essential point in this system of Catego- 
 ries, which distinguishes it from the old rhapsodical 
 collection without any principle, and for which alone 
 it deserves to be considered as philosophy, consists 
 in this : that by means of it the true significance of 
 the pure concepts of the understanding and the con- 
 dition of their use could be precisely determined. For 
 here it became obvious that they are themselves noth- 
 ing but logical functions, and as such do not produce 
 the least concept of an object, but require some sen- 
 suous intuition as a basis. They therefore only serve 
 to determine empirical judgments, which are other- 
 wise undetermined and indifferent as regards all func- 
 tions of judging, relatively to these functions, thereby 
 
88 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 procuring them universal validity, and by means of 
 them making judgments of experience in general pos- 
 sible. 
 
 Such an insight into the nature of the categories, 
 which limits them at the same time to the mere use of 
 experience, never occurred either to their first author, 
 or to any of his successors ; but without this insight 
 (which immediately depends upon their derivation or 
 deduction), they are quite useless and only a miser- 
 able list of names, without explanation or rule for 
 their use. Had the ancients ever conceived such a 
 notion, doubtless the whole study of the pure rational 
 knowledge, which under the name of metaphysics has 
 for centuries spoiled many a sound mind, would have 
 reached us in quite another shape, and would have 
 enlightened the human understanding, instead of 
 actually exhausting it in obscure and vain specula- 
 tions, thereby rendering it unfit for true science. 
 
 This system of categories makes all treatment of 
 every object of pure reason itself systematic, and 
 affords a direction or clue how and through what 
 points of inquiry every metaphysical consideration 
 must proceed, in order to be complete ; for it exhausts 
 all the possible movements {momenta) of the under- 
 standing, among which every concept must be classed. 
 In like manner the table of Principles has been formu- 
 lated, the completeness of which we can only vouch 
 for by the system of the categories. Even in the divi- 
 sion of the concepts,! which must go beyond the phys- 
 ical application of the understanding, it is always the 
 very same clue, which, as it must always be deter- 
 
 1 See the two tables in the chapters Von den Paralogismen der reinen Ver- 
 nnn/t and the first division of the Antinomy of Pure Reason, System der kos- 
 mologiscken Ideen. 
 
HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? 89 
 
 mined a priori by the same fixed points of the human 
 understanding, always forms a closed circle. There 
 is no doubt that the object of a pure conception either 
 of the understanding or of reason, so far as it is to be 
 estimated philosophically and on a priori principles, 
 can in this way be completely cognised. I could not 
 therefore omit to make use of this clue with regard to 
 one of the most abstract ontological divisions, viz. , 
 the various distinctions of "the notions of something 
 and of nothing," and to construct accordingly {Cri- 
 tique, p. 207) a regular and necessary table of their 
 divisions.^ 
 
 And this system, like every other true one founded 
 on a universal principle, shows its inestimable value 
 in this, that it excludes all foreign concepts, which 
 might otherwise intrude among the pure concepts of 
 the understanding, and determines the place of every 
 cognition. Those concepts, which under the name of 
 "concepts of reflexion " have been likewise arranged 
 in a table according to the clue of the categories, in- 
 trude, without having any privilege or title to be 
 
 1 On the table of the categories many neat observations may be made, for 
 instance : (i) that tlie third arises from the first and the second joined in one 
 concept; (2) that in those of Quantity and of Quality there is merely a pro- 
 gress from unity to totality, or from something to nothing (for this purpose 
 the categories of Quality must stand thus : reality, limitatioii, total negation), 
 without correlata or opposita, whereas those of Relation-and of Modality have 
 them ; (3) that, as in Logic categorical judgments are the basis of all others, 
 so the category of Substance is the basis of all concepts of actual things; 
 (4) that as Modality in the judgment is not a particular predicate, so by the 
 modal concepts a determination is not superadded to things, etc., etc. Such 
 observations are of great use. If we besides enumerate all the predicables, 
 which we can find pretty completely in any good ontology (for example, 
 Baumgarten's), and arrange them in classes under the categories, in which 
 operation we must not neglect to add as complete a dissection of all these 
 concepts as possible, there will then arise a merely analytical part of meta- 
 physics, which does not contain a single synthetical proposition, which 
 might precede the second (the synthetical), and would by its precision and 
 completeness be not only useful, but, in virtue of its system, be even to some 
 extent elegant. 
 
go kant's prolegomena. 
 
 among the pure concepts of the understanding in On- 
 tology. They are concepts of connexion, and thereby 
 of the objects themselves, whereas the former are only 
 concepts of a mere comparison of concepts already 
 given, hence of quite another nature and use. By 
 my systematic division ^ they are saved from this con- 
 fusion. But the value of my special table of the cate- 
 gories will be still more obvious, when we separate the 
 table of the transcendental concepts of Reason from 
 the concepts of the understanding. The latter being 
 of quite another nature and origin, they must have 
 quite another form than the former. This so neces- 
 sary separation has never yet been made in any sys- 
 tem of metaphysics for, as a rule, these rational con- 
 cepts all mixed up with the categories, like children 
 of one family, which confusion was unavoidable in the 
 absence of a definite system of categories. 
 
 ISee Critigue of Pure Reason, Von der Amfikibolie der Reflexbegriffe, 
 
THIRD PART OF THE MAIN TRAN- 
 SCENDENTAIv PROBLEM. 
 
 HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? 
 
 § 4°- 
 
 PURE mathematics and pure science of nature had 
 no occasion for such a deduction, as we have 
 made of both, for their own safety and certainty. For 
 the former rests upon its own evidence ; and the latter 
 (though sprung from pure sources of the understand- 
 ing) upon experience and its thorough confirmation. 
 Physics cannot altogether refuse and dispense with 
 the testimony of the latter ; because with all its cer- 
 tainty, it can never, as philosophy, rival mathemat- 
 ics. Both sciences therefore stood in need of this in- 
 quiry, not for themselves, but for the sake of another 
 science, metaphysics. 
 
 Metaphysics has to do not only with concepts of 
 nature, which always find their application in experi- 
 ence, but also with pure rational concepts, which 
 never can be given in any possible experience. Con- 
 sequently the objective reality of these concepts (viz., 
 that they are not mere chimeras), and the truth or 
 falsity of metaphysical assertions, cannot be discov- 
 ered or confirmed by any experience. This part of 
 metaphysics however is precisely what constitutes its 
 essential end, to which the rest is only a means, and 
 
92 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 thus this science is in need of such a deduction for its 
 own sake. The third question now proposed relates 
 therefore as it were to the root and essential difference 
 of metaphysics, i. e., the occupation of Reason with 
 itself, and the supposed knowledge of objects arising 
 immediately from this incubation of its own concepts, 
 without requiring, or indeed being able to reach that 
 knowledge through, experience.* 
 
 Without solving this problem reason never is jus- 
 tified. The empirical use to which reason limits the 
 pure understanding, does not fully satisfy the proper 
 destination of the latter. Every single experience is 
 only a part of the whole sphere of its domain, but the 
 absolute totality of all possible experience is itself not 
 experience. Yet it is a necessary [concrete] problem 
 for reason, the mere representation of which requires 
 concepts quite different from the categories, whose 
 use is only immanent, or refers to experience, so far 
 as it can be given. Whereas the concepts of reason 
 aim at the completeness, i. e., the collective unity of 
 all possible experience, and thereby transcend every 
 given experience. Thus they become transcendent. 
 
 As the understanding stands in need of categories 
 for experience, reason contains in itself the source 
 of ideas, by which I mean necessary concepts, whose 
 object cannot be given in any experience. The latter 
 are inherent in the nature of reason, as the former 
 are in that of the understanding. While the former 
 carry with them an illusion likely to niislead, the illu- 
 
 1 If we can say, that a science is actual at least in the idea of all men, as 
 soon as it appears that the problems which lead to it are proposed to every- 
 body by the nature of human reason, and that therefore many (though faulty) 
 endeavors are unavoidably made in its behalf, then we are bound to say that 
 metaphysics is subjectively (and indeed necessarily) actual, and therefore 
 we justly ask, how is it (objectively) possible. 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? 93 
 
 sion of the latter is inevitable, though it certainly can 
 be kept from misleading us. 
 
 Since all illusion consists in holding the subjective 
 ground of our judgments to be objective, a self- 
 knowledge of pure reason in its transcendent (ex- 
 aggerated) use is the sole preservative from the aber- 
 rations into which reason falls when it mistakes its 
 destination, and refers that to the object transcen- 
 dently, which only regards its own subject and its 
 guidance in all immanent use. 
 
 § 41. The distinction of ideas, that is, of pure 
 concepts of reason, from categories, or pure concepts 
 of the understanding, as cognitions of a quite distinct 
 species, origin and use, is so important a point in 
 founding a science which is to contain the system of 
 all these a priori cognitions, that without this distinc- 
 tion metaphysics is absolutely impossible, or is at 
 best a random, bungling attempt to build a castle in 
 the air without a knowledge of the materials or of 
 their fitness for any purpose. Had the Critique of 
 Pure Reason done nothing but first point out this dis- 
 tinction, it had thereby contributed more to clear up 
 our conception of, and to guide our inquiry in, the 
 field of metaphysics, than all the vain efforts which 
 have hitherto been made to satisfy the transcendent 
 problems of pure reason, without ever surmising that 
 we were in quite another field than that of the under- 
 standing, and hence classing concepts of the under- 
 standing and those of reason together, as if they 
 were of the same kind. 
 
 § 42. All pure cognitions of the understanding 
 have this feature, that their concepts present them- 
 selves in experience, and their principles can be con- 
 firmed by it ; whereas the transcendent cognitions of 
 
94 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 reason cannot, either as ideas, appear in experience, 
 or as propositions ever be confirmed or refuted by it. 
 Hence whatever errors may slip in unawares, can only 
 be discovered by pure reason itself — a discovery of 
 much difficulty, because this very reason naturally 
 becomes dialectical by means of its ideas, and this 
 unavoidable illusion cannot be limited by any objec- 
 tive and dogmatical researches into things, but by a 
 subjective investigation of reason itself as a source of 
 ideas. 
 
 § 43. In the Critique of Pure Reason it was always 
 my greatest care to endeavor not only carefully to dis- 
 tinguish the several species of cognition, but to de- 
 rive concepts belonging to each one of them from 
 their common source. I did this in order that by 
 knowing whence they originated, I might determine 
 their use with safety, and also have the unanticipated 
 but invaluable advantage of knowing the completeness 
 of my enumeration, classification and specification of 
 concepts a priori, and therefore according to prin- 
 ciples. Without this, metaphysics is mere rhapsody, 
 in which no one knows whether he has enough, or 
 whether and where something is still wanting. We 
 can indeed have this advantage only in pure philos- 
 ophy, but of this philosophy it constitutes the very 
 essence^ 
 
 As I had found the origin of the categories in the 
 four logical functions of all the judgments of the un- 
 derstanding, it was quite natural to seek the origin of 
 the ideas in the three functions of the syllogisms of 
 reason. For as soon as these pure concepts of rea- 
 son (the transcendental ideas) are given, they could 
 hardly, except they be held innate, be found anywhere 
 else, than in the same activity of reason, which, so 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? 95 
 
 far as it regards mere form, constitutes the logical 
 element of the syllogisms of reason ; but, so far as it 
 represents judgments of the understanding with re- 
 spect to the one or to the other form a priori, consti- 
 tutes transcendental concepts of pure reason. 
 
 The formal distinction of syllogisms renders their 
 division into categorical, hypothetical, and disjunc- 
 tive necessary. The concepts of reason founded on 
 them contained therefore, first, the idea of the com- 
 plete subject (the substantial); secondly, the idea of 
 the cortiplete series of conditions ; thirdly, the deter- 
 mination of all concepts in the idea of a complete 
 complex of that which is possible. ^ The first idea is 
 psychological, the second cosmological, the third 
 theological, and, as all three give occasion to Dialec- 
 tics, yet each in its own way, the division of the 
 whole Dialects of pure reason into its Paralogism, its 
 Antinomy, and its Ideal, was arranged accordingly. 
 Through this deduction we may feel assured that all 
 the claims of pure reason are completely represented, 
 and that none can be wanting ; because the faculty of 
 reason itself, whence they all take their origin, is 
 thereby completely surveyed. 
 
 § 44. In these general considerations it is also re- 
 markable that the ideas of reason are unlike the cate- 
 gories, of no service to the use of our understanding 
 
 1 In disjunctive judgments we consider all possibility as divided in re- 
 spect to a particular concept. By the ontological principle of the universal 
 determination of a thing in general, I understand the principle that either 
 the one or the other of all possible contradictory predicates must be assigned 
 to any object. This is at the same time the principle of all disjunctive judg- 
 ments, constituting the foundation of our conception of possibility, and in it 
 the possibility of every object in general is considered as determined. This 
 may serve as a slight explanation of the above proposition : that the activity 
 of reason in disjunctive syllogisms is formally the same as that by which it 
 fashions the idea of a universal conception of all reality, containing in itself 
 that which is positive in all contradictory predicates. 
 
g6 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 in experience, but quite dispensable, and become even 
 an impediment to the maxims of a rational cognition 
 of nature. Yet in another aspect still to be determined 
 they are necessary. Whether the soul is or is not a 
 simple substance, is of no consequence to us in the 
 explanation of its phenomena. For we cannot render 
 the notion of a. simple being intelligible by any pos- 
 sible experience that is sensuous or concrete. The 
 notion is therefore quite void as regards all hoped-for 
 insight into the cause of phenomena, and cannot at 
 all serve as a principle of the explanation of that 
 which internal or external experience supplies. So 
 the cosmological ideas of the beginning of the world 
 or of its eternity (a pdrU ante) cannot be of any greater 
 service to us for the explanation of any event in the 
 world itself. And finally we must, according to a 
 right maxim of the philosophy of nature, refrain from 
 all explanations of the design of nature, drawn from 
 the will of a Supreme Being ; because this would not 
 be natural philosophy, but an acknowledgment that 
 we have come to the end of it. The use of these 
 ideas, therefore, is quite different from that of those 
 categories by which (and by the principles built upon 
 which) experience itself first becomes possible. But 
 our laborious analytics of the understanding would be 
 superfluous if we had nothing else in view than the 
 mere cognition of nature as it can be given in experi- 
 ence ; for reason does its work, both in mathematics 
 and in the science of nature, quite safely and well 
 without any of this subtle deduction. Therefore our 
 Critique of the Understanding combines with the ideas 
 of pure reason for a purpose which lies beyond the 
 empirical use of the understanding ; but this we have 
 above declared to be in this aspect totally inadmis- 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? 97 
 
 sible, and without any object or meaning. Yet there 
 must be a harmony between that of the nature of rea- 
 son and that of the understanding, and the former 
 must contribute to the perfection of the latter, and 
 cannot possibly upset it. 
 
 The solution of this question is as follows : Pure 
 reason does not in its ideas point to particular ob- 
 jects, which lie beyond the field of experience, but 
 only requires completeness of the use of the under- 
 standing in the system of experien<ie. But this com- 
 pleteness can be a completeness of principles only, 
 not of intuitions (i. e., concrete atsights ox Anschau- 
 ungeti) and of objects. In order however to represent 
 the ideas definitely, reason conceives them after the 
 fashion of the cognition of an object. The cognition 
 is as far as these rules are concerned completely de- 
 termined, but the object is only an idea invented for 
 the purpose of bringing the cognition of the under- 
 standing as near as possible to the completeness rep- 
 resented by that idea. 
 
 Prefatory Remark to the Dialectics of Pure Reason. 
 
 § 45. We have above shown in §§ 33 and 34 that 
 the purity of the categories from all admixture of sen- 
 suous determinations may mislead reason into extend- 
 ing their use, quite beyond all experience, to things 
 in themselves ; though as these categories themselves 
 find no intuition which can give them meaning or 
 sense in concreto, they, as mere logical functions, can 
 represent a thing in general, but not give by them- 
 selves alone a determinate concept of anything. Such 
 hyperbolical objects are distinguised by the appella- 
 tion of NoHmena, or pure beings of the understanding 
 (or better, beings of thought), such as, for example. 
 
gS KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 "substance," but conceived without permanence in 
 time, or "cause," but not acting in time, etc. Here 
 predicates, that only serve to make the conformity-to- 
 law of experience possible, are applied to these con- 
 cepts, and yet they are deprived of all the conditions 
 of intuition, on which alone experience is possible, 
 and so these concepts lose all significance. 
 
 There is no danger, however, of the understanding 
 spontaneously making an excursion so very wantonly 
 beyond its own bounds into the field of the mere crea- 
 tures of thought, without being impelled by foreign 
 laws. But when reason, which cannot be fully satis- 
 fied with any empirical use of the rules of the under- 
 standing, as being always conditioned, requires a com- 
 pletion of this chain of conditions, then the under- 
 standing is forced out of its sphere. And then it partly 
 represents objects of experience in a series so extended 
 that no experience can grasp, partly even (with a view 
 to complete the series) it seeks entirely beyond it 
 noumena, to which it can attach that chain, and so, 
 having at last escaped from the conditions of experi- 
 ence, make its attitude as it were final. These are 
 then the transcendental ideas, which, though accord- 
 ing to the true but hidden ends of the natural deter- 
 mination of our reason, they may aim not at extrava- 
 gant concepts, but at an unbounded extension of their 
 empirical use, yet seduce the understanding by an 
 unavoidable illusion to a transcendent use, which, 
 though deceitful, cannot be restrained within the 
 bounds of experience by any resolution, but only by 
 scientific instruction and with much difficulty. 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? 99 
 
 I . The Psychological Idea. ^ 
 
 § 46. People have long since observed, that in all 
 substances the proper subject, that which remains 
 after all the accidents (as predicates) are abstracted, 
 consequently that which forms the substance of things 
 remains unknown, and various complaints have been 
 made concerning these limits to our knowledge. But 
 it will be well to consider that the human understand- 
 ing is not to be blamed for its inability to know the 
 substance of things, that is, to determine it by itself, 
 but rather for requiring to cognise it which is a mere 
 idea definitely as though it were a given object. Pure 
 reason requires us to seek for every predicate of a 
 thing its proper subject, and for this subject, which 
 is itself necessarily nothing but a predicate, its sub- 
 ject, and so on indefinitely (or as far as we can reach). 
 But hence it follows, that we must not hold anything, 
 at which we can arrive, to be an ultimate subject, 
 and that substance itself never can be thought by our 
 understanding, however deep we may penetrate, even 
 if all nature were unveiled to us. For the specific 
 nature of our understanding consists in thinking every- 
 thing discursively, that is, representing it by concepts, 
 and so by mere predicates, to which therefore the ab- 
 solute subject must always be wanting. Hence all 
 the real properties, by which we cognise bodies, are 
 mere accidents, not excepting impenetrability, which 
 we can only represent to ourselves as the effect of a 
 power of which the subject is unknown to us. 
 
 Now we appear to have this substance in the con- 
 sciousness of ourselves (in the thinking subject), and 
 indeed in an immediate intuition; for all the predi- 
 
 1 See Critique of Pure Reason^ Von den Paralogismen der reinen Vernunfi, 
 
loo rant's prolegomena. 
 
 cates of an internal sense refer to the ego, as a sub- 
 ject, and I cannot conceive myself as the predicate of 
 any other subject. Hence completeness in the refer- 
 ence of the given concepts as predicates to a subject 
 — not merely an idea, but an object — that is, the ab- 
 solute subject itself, seems to be given in experience. 
 But this expectation is disappointed. For the ego is 
 not a concept, 1 but only the indication of the object 
 of the internal sense, so far as we cognise it by no 
 further predicate. Consequently it cannot be in itself 
 a predicate of any other thing ; but just as little can 
 it be a determinate concept of an absolute subject, 
 but is, as in all other cases, only the reference of the 
 internal phenomena to their unknown subject. Yet 
 this idea (which serves very well, as a regulative prin- 
 ciple, totally to destroy all materialistic explanations 
 of the internal phenomena of the soul) occasions by a 
 very natural misunderstanding a very specious argu- 
 ment, which, from this supposed cognition of the 
 substance of our thinking being, infers its nature, so 
 far as the knowledge of it falls quite without the com- 
 plex of experience. 
 
 § 47. But though we may call- this thinking self 
 (the soul) substance, as being the ultimate subject of 
 thinking which cannot be further represented as the 
 predicate of another thing; it remains quite empty 
 and without significance, if permanence — the quality 
 which renders the concept of substances in experience 
 fruitful — cannot be proved of it. 
 
 But permanence can never be proved of the con- 
 
 1 Were the representation of the apperception [the Ego] a concept, by 
 which anything could be thought, it could be used as a predicate of other 
 things or contain predicates in itself. But it is nothing more than the feeling 
 of an existence without the least definite conception and is only the repre- 
 sentation of that to which all thinking stands in relation {rela-iione accidentia). 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? lOI 
 
 cept of a substance, as a thing in itself, but for the 
 purposes of experience only. This is sufficiently 
 shown by the first Analogy of Experience,^ and who- 
 ever will not yield to this proof may try for himself 
 whether he can succeed in proving, from the concept 
 of a subject which does not exist itself as the predi- 
 cate of another thing, that its existence is thoroughly 
 permanent, and that it cannot either in itself or by 
 any natural cause originate or be annihilated. These 
 synthetical a priori propositions can never be proved 
 in themselves, but only in reference to things as ob- 
 jects of possible experience. 
 
 § 48. If therefore from the concept of the soul as 
 a substance, we would infer its permanence, this can 
 hold good as regards possible experience only, not 
 [of the soul] as a thing in itself and beyond all pos- 
 sible experience. But life is the subjective condition 
 of all our possible experience, consequently we can 
 only infer the permanence of the soul in life ; for the 
 death of man is the end of all experience which con- 
 cerns the soul as an object of experience, except the 
 contrary be proved, which is the very question in 
 hand. The permanence of the soul can therefore 
 only be proved (and no one cares for that) during the 
 life of man, but not, as we desire to do, after death ; 
 and for this general reason, that the concept of sub- 
 stance, so far as it is to be considered necessarily 
 combined with the concept of permanence, can be so 
 combined only according to the principles of possible 
 experience, and therefore for the purposes of experi- 
 ence only.* 
 
 ICf. Critique, Von den Analogien der Brfahrung. 
 
 8 It is indeed very remarkable how carelessly metaphysicians have always 
 passed over the principle of the permanence of substances without ever 
 
I02 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 § 49. That there is something real without us 
 which not only corresponds, but must correspond, to 
 our external perceptions, can likewise be proved to 
 be not a connexion of things in themselves, but for 
 the sake of experience. This means that there is 
 something empirical, i. e. , some phenomenon in space 
 without us, that admits of a satisfactory proof, for we 
 have nothing to do with other objects than those 
 which belong to possible experience ; because objects 
 which cannot be given us in any experience, do not 
 exist for us. Empirically without me is that which 
 appears in space, and space, together with all the 
 phenomena which it contains, belongs to the represen- 
 tations, whose connexion according to laws of experi- 
 ence proves their objective truth, just as the connexion 
 of the phenomena of the internal sense proves the ac- 
 tuality of my soul (as an object of the internal sense). 
 By means of external experience I am conscious of 
 the actuality of bodies, as external phenomena in 
 space, in the same manner as by means of the inter- 
 nal experience I am conscious of the existence of my 
 
 attempting a proof of it; doubtless because they found themselves aban- 
 doned by all proofs as soon as they began to deal with the concept of sub- 
 .stance. Common sense, which felt distinctly that without this presupposition 
 no union of perceptions in experience is possible, supplied the want by a 
 {postulate. From experience itself it never could derive such a principle, 
 partly because substances cannot be so traced in all their alterations and 
 dissolutions, that the matter can always be found undiminished, partly be- 
 cause the principle contains necessity, which is always the sign of an apriori 
 principle. People then boldly applied this postulate to the concept of soul 
 as a substance, and concluded a necessary continuance of the soul after the 
 death of man (especially as the simplicity of this substance, which is inferred 
 from the indivisibility of consciousness, secured it from destruction by dis- 
 solution). Had they found the genuine source of this principle — a discovery 
 which requires deeper researches than they were ever inclined to make — 
 they would have seen, that the law of the permanence of substances has 
 place for the purposes of experience only, and hence can hold good of things 
 so far as they are to be cognised and conjoined with others in experience, 
 but never independently of all possible experience, and consequently cannot 
 hold good of the soul after death. 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? IO3 
 
 soul in time, but this soul is only cognised as an ob- 
 ject of the internal sense by phenomena that consti- 
 tute an internal state, and of which the essence in it- 
 self, which forms the basis of these phenomena, is 
 unknown. Cartesian idealism therefore does nothing 
 but distinguish external experience from dreaming; 
 and the conformity to law (as a criterion of its truth) 
 of the former, from the irregularity and the false illu- 
 sion of the latter. In both it presupposes space and 
 time as conditions of the existence of objects, and it 
 only inquires whether the objects of the external 
 senses, which we when awake put in space, are as 
 actually to be found in it, as the. object of the internal 
 sense, the soul, is in time ; that is, whether experience 
 carries with it sure criteria to distinguish it from im- 
 agination. This doubt, however, may easily be dis- 
 posed of, and we always do so in common life by in- 
 vestigating the connexion of phenomena in both space 
 and time according to universal laws of experience, 
 and we cannot doubt, when the representation of ex- 
 ternal things throughout agrees therewith, that they 
 constitute truthful experience. Material idealism, in 
 which phenomena are considered as such only accord- 
 ing to their connexion in experience, may accordingly 
 be very easily refuted; and it is just as sure an expe- 
 rience, that bodies exist without us (in space), as that 
 I myself exist according to the representation of the 
 internal sense (in time) : for the notion without us, 
 only signifies existence in space. However as the 
 Ego in the proposition, "I am," means not only the 
 object of internal intuition (in time), but the subject 
 of consciousness, just as body means not only external 
 intuition (in space), but the thing-in-itself, which is 
 the basis of this phenomenon ; [as this is the case] 
 
104 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 the question, whether bodies (as phenomena of the 
 external sense) exist as bodies apart from my thoughts, 
 may without any hesitation be denied in nature. But 
 the question, whether I myself as a phenomenon of 
 the internal sense (the soul according to empirical 
 psychology) exist apart from my faculty of represen- 
 tation in time, is an exactly similar inquiry, and must 
 likewise be answered in the negative. And in this 
 manner everything, when it is reduced to its true 
 meaning, is decided and certain. The formal (which 
 I have also called transcendental) actually abolishes 
 the material, or Cartesian, idealism. For if space be 
 nothing but a form of my sensibility, it is as a repre- 
 sentation in me just as actual as I myself am, and 
 nothing but the empirical truth of the representations 
 in it remains for consideration. But, if this is not the 
 case, if space and the phenomena in it are something 
 existing without us, then all the criteria of experience 
 beyond our perception can never prove the actuality 
 of these objects without us. 
 
 II. The Cosmological Ideay 
 
 § 50. This product of pure reason in its tran- 
 scendent use is its most remarkable curiosity. It 
 serves as a very powerful agent td rouse philosophy 
 from its dogmatic slumber, and to stimulate it to the 
 arduous task of undertaking a Critique 0/ JSeasonitselt. 
 
 I term this idea cosmological, because it always 
 takes its object only from the sensible world, and does 
 not use any other than those whose object is given to 
 sense, consequently it remains in this respect in its 
 native home, it does not become transcendent, and is 
 therefore so far not mere idea ; whereas, to conceive 
 
 I Of. Critique, Die Antinomie der reinen Vernunft, 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? 105 
 
 the soul as a simple substance, already means to con- 
 ceive such an object (the simple) as cannot be pre- 
 sented to the senses. Yet the cosmological idea 
 extends the connexion of the conditioned with its con- 
 dition (whether the connexion is mathematical or dy- 
 namical) so far, that experience never can keep up 
 with it. It is therefore with regard to this point always 
 an idea, whose object never can be adequately given 
 in any experience. 
 
 § 51. In the first place, the use of a system of 
 categories becomes here so obvious and unmistakable, 
 that even if there were not several other proofs of it, 
 this alone would sufficiently prove it indispensable in 
 the system of pure reason. There are only four such 
 transcendent ideas, as there are so many classes of 
 categories ; in each of which, however, they refer only 
 to the absolute completeness of the series of the con- 
 ditions for a given conditioned. In analogy to these 
 cosmological ideas there are only four kinds of dia- 
 lectical assertions of pure reason, which, as they are 
 dialectical, thereby prove, that to each of them, on 
 equally specious principles of pure reason, a contra- 
 dictory assertion stands opposed. As all the meta- 
 physical art of the most subtile distinction cannot 
 prevent this opposition, it compels the philosopher 
 to recur to the first sources of pure reason itself. This 
 Antinomy, not arbitrarily invented, but founded in 
 the nature of human reason, and hence unavoidable 
 and never ceasing, contains the following four theses 
 together with their antitheses : 
 
 I. 
 
 Thesis. 
 
 The World has, as to Time and Space, a Beginning (limit). 
 
I06 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 Antithesis. 
 The World is, as to Time and Space, infinite. 
 
 2. 
 
 Thesis. 
 Everything in the World consists of [elements that are] simple. 
 
 Antithesis. 
 There is nothing simple, but everything is composite. 
 
 3- 
 
 Thesis. 
 There are in the World Causes through Freedom. 
 
 Antithesis. 
 There is no Liberty, but all is Nature. 
 
 4- 
 
 Thesis. 
 
 In the Series of the WorldtCauses there is some necessary Being. 
 
 Antithesis. 
 
 There is Nothing necessary in the World, but in this Series All is 
 
 incidental. 
 
 § 52. a. Here is the most singular phenomenon of 
 human reason, no other instance of which can be 
 shown in any other use. If we, as is commonly done, 
 represent to ourselves the appearances of the sensible 
 world as things in themselves, if we assume the prin- 
 ciples of their combination as principles universally 
 valid of things in themselves and not merely of expe- 
 rience, as is usually, nay without our Critique, un- 
 avoidably done, there arises an unexpected conflict, 
 which never can be removed in the common dogmat- 
 ical way ; because the thesis, as well as the antithesis, 
 can be shown by equally clear, evident, and irresist- 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? I07 
 
 ible proofs — for I pledge myself as to the correctness 
 of all these proofs — and reason therefore perceives 
 that it is divided with itself, a state at which the scep- 
 tic rejoices, but which must make the critical philos- 
 opher pause and feel ill at ease. 
 
 § 52. b. We may blunder in various ways in meta- 
 physics without any fear of being detected in false- 
 hood. For we never can be refuted by experience if 
 we but avoid self-contradiction, which in synthetical, 
 though purely fictitious propositions, may be done 
 whenever the concepts, which we connect, are mere 
 ideas, that cannot be given (in their whole content) 
 in experience. For how can we make out by experi- 
 ence, whether the world is from eternity or had a be- 
 ginning, whether matter is infinitely divisible or con- 
 sists of simple parts? Such concept cannot be given 
 in any experience, be it ever so extensive, and conse- 
 quently the falsehood either of the positive or the 
 negative proposition cannot be discovered by this 
 touch-stone. 
 
 The only possible way in which reason could have 
 revealed unintentionally its secret Dialectics, falsely 
 announced as Dogmatics, would be when it were made 
 to ground an assertion upon a universally admitted 
 principle, and to deduce the exact contrary with the 
 greatest accuracy of inference from another which is 
 equally granted. This is actually here the case with 
 regard to four natural ideas of reason, whence four 
 assertions on the one side, and as many counter-asser- 
 tions on the other arise, each consistently following 
 from universally-acknowledged principles. Thus they 
 reveal by the use of these principles the dialectical 
 illusion of pure reason which would otherwise for- 
 ever remain concealed. 
 
to8 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 This is therefore a decisive experiment, which 
 must necessarily expose any error lying hidden in the 
 assumptions of reason.^ Contradictory propositions 
 cannot both be false, except the concept, which is the 
 subject of both, is self-contradictory; for example, 
 the propositions, "a square circle is round, and a 
 square circle is not round," are both false. For, as 
 to the former it is false, that the circle is round, be- 
 cause it is quadrangular; and it is likewise false, that 
 it is not round, that is, angular, because it is a circle. 
 For the logical criterion of the impossibility of a con- 
 cept consists in this, that if we presuppose it, two 
 contradictory propositions both become false ; conse- 
 quently, as no middle between them is conceivable, 
 nothing at all is thought by that concept. 
 
 § 52. c. The first two antinomies, which I call 
 mathematical, because they are concerned with the 
 addition or division of the homogeneous, are founded 
 on such a self-contradictory concept ; and hence I ex- 
 plain how it happens, that both the Thesis and Anti- 
 thesis of the two are false. 
 
 When I speak of objects in time and in space, it is 
 not of things in themselves, of which I know nothing, 
 but of things in appearance, that is, of experience, 
 as the particular way of cognising objects which is 
 afforded to man. I must not say of what I think in 
 time or in space, that in itself, and independent of 
 
 1 1 therefore would be pleased to have the critical reader to devote to this 
 antinomy of pure reason his chief attention, because nature itself seems to 
 have established it with a view to stagger reason in its daring pretentions, 
 and to force it to self-examination. For every proof, which I have given, as 
 well of the thesis as of the antithesis, 1 undertake to be responsible, and 
 thereby to show the certainty of the inevitable antinomy of reason. When 
 the reader is brought by this curious phenomenon to fall back upon the proof 
 of the presumption upon which it rests, he will feel himself obliged to in- 
 vestigate the ultimate foundation of all the cognition of pure reason with me . 
 more thoroughly. 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? IO9 
 
 these my thoughts, it exists in space and in time ; for 
 in that case I should contradict myself ; because space 
 and time, together with the appearances in them, are 
 nothing existing in themselves and outside of my rep- 
 resentations, but are themselves only modes of repre- 
 sentation, and it is palpably contradictory to say, that 
 a mere mode of representation exists without our rep- 
 resentation. Objects of the senses therefore exist only 
 in experience ; whereas to give them a self-subsisting 
 existence apart from experience or before it, is merely 
 to represent to ourselves that experience actually ex- 
 ists apart from experience or before it. 
 
 Now if I inquire after the quantity of the world, as 
 to space and time, it is equally impossible,vas regards 
 all my notions, to declare it infinite or to declare it 
 finite. For neither assertion can be contained in expe- 
 rience, because experience either of an infinite space, 
 or of an infinite time elapsed, or again, of the bound- 
 ary of the world by a void space, or by an antecedent 
 void time, is impossible ; these are mere ideas. This 
 quantity of the world, which is determined in either 
 way, should therefore exist in the world itself apart 
 from all experience. This contradicts the notion of a 
 world of sense, which is merely a complex of the ap- 
 pearances whose existence and connexion occur only 
 in our representations, that is, in experience, since this 
 latter is not an object in itself, but a mere mode of 
 representation. Hence it follows," that as the concept 
 of an absolutely existing world of sense is self-contra- 
 dictory, the solution of the problem concerning its 
 quantity, whether attempted affirmatively or nega- 
 tively, is always false. 
 
 The same holds good of the second antinomy, 
 which relates to the division of phenomena. For these 
 
no KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 are mere representations, and the parts exist merely 
 in their representation, consequently in the division, 
 or in a possible experience where they are given, and 
 the division reaches only as far as this latter reaches. 
 To assume that an appearance, e. g., that of body, 
 contains in itself before all experience all the parts, 
 which any possible experience can ever reach, is to 
 impute to a mere appearance, which can exist only in 
 experience, an existence previous to experience. In 
 other words, it would mean that mere representations 
 exist before they can be found in our faculty of repre- 
 sentation. Such an assertion is self-contradictory, as 
 also every solution of our misunderstood problem, 
 whether we maintain, that bodies in themselves con- 
 sist of an infinite number of parts, or of a finite num- 
 ber of simple parts. 
 
 § 53. In the first (the mathematical) class of anti- 
 nomies the falsehood of the assumption consists in 
 representing in one concept something self-contra- 
 dictory as if it were compatible (i. e., an appearance 
 as an object in itself). But, as to the second (the dy- 
 namical) class of antinomies, the falsehood of the rep- 
 resentation consists in representing as contradictory 
 what is compatible ; so that, as in the former case, 
 the opposed assertions are both false, in this case, on 
 the other hand, where they are opposed to one an- 
 other by mere misunderstanding, they may both be 
 true. 
 
 Any mathematical connexion necessarily presup- 
 poses homogeneity of what is connected (in the con- 
 cept of magnitude), while the dynamical one by no 
 means requires the same. When we have to deal with 
 extended magnitudes, all the parts must be homogene- 
 ous with one another and with the whole ; whereas. 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? Ill 
 
 in the connexion of cause and effect, homogeneity 
 may indeed likewise be found, but is not necessary ; 
 for the concept of causality (by means of which some- 
 thing is posited through something else quite different 
 from it), at all events, does not require it. 
 
 If the objects of the world of sense are taken for 
 things in themselves, and the above laws of nature 
 for the laws of things in themselves, the contradiction 
 would be unavoidable. So also, if the subject of free- 
 dom were, like other objects, represented as mere ap- 
 pearance, the contradiction would be just as unavoid- 
 able, for the same predicate would at once be affirmed 
 and denied of the same kind of object in the same 
 sense. But if natural necessity is referred merely to 
 appearances, and freedom merely to things in them- 
 selves, no contradiction arises, if we at once assume, 
 or admit both kinds of causality, however difficult or 
 impossible it may be to make the latter kind conceiv- 
 able. 
 
 As appearance every effect is an event, or some- 
 thing that happens in time ; it must, according to the 
 universal law of nature, be preceded by a determina- 
 tion of the causality of its cause (a state), which fol- 
 lows according to a constant law. But this determi- 
 nation of the cause as causality must likewise be 
 something that takes place or happens; the cause 
 must have begun to act, otherwise no succession be- 
 tween it and the effect could be conceived. Other- 
 wise the effect, as well as the causality of the cause, 
 would have always existed. Therefore the determi- 
 nation of the cause to act must also have originated 
 among appearances, and must consequently, as well 
 as its effect, be an event, which must again have its 
 cause, and so on; hence natural necessity must be 
 
112 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 the condition, on which effective causes are deter- 
 mined. Whereas if freedom is to be a property of 
 certain causes of appearances, it must, as regards 
 these, which are events, be a facuhy of starting them 
 spontaneously, that is, without the causality of the 
 cause itself, and hence without requiring any other 
 ground to determine its start. But then the cause, 
 as to its causality, must not rank under time-determi- 
 nations of its state, that is, it cannot be an appear- 
 ance, and must be considered a thing in itself, while 
 its effects would be only appearances. * If without 
 contradiction we can think of the beings of under- 
 standing \_Verstandeswesen\ as exercising such an in- 
 fluence on appearances, then natural necessity will 
 attach to all connexions of cause and effect in the 
 sensuous world, though on the other hand, freedom 
 can be granted to such cause, as is itself not an ap- 
 pearance (but the foundation of appearance). Nature 
 therefore and freedom can without contradiction be 
 attributed to the very same thing, but in different re- 
 lations — on one side as a phenomenon, on the other 
 as a thing in itself. 
 
 We have in us a faculty, whith not only stands in 
 
 IThe idea of freedom occurs only in the relation of the intellectual, as 
 cause, to the appearance, as effect. Hence we cannot attribute freedom to 
 matter in regard to the incessant action by which it fills its space, though 
 this action takes place from an inteirnal principle. We can likewise find no 
 notion of freedom suitable to purely rational beings, for instance, to God, so 
 far as his action is immanent. For his action, though independent of ex- 
 ternal determining causes, is determined in his eternal reason, that is, ia the 
 divine nature. It is only, if something is to start by an action, and so the 
 effect occurs in the sequence of time, or in the world of sense (e. g., the be- 
 ginning of the world), that we can put the question, whether the causality of 
 the cause must in its turn have been started, or whether the cause can origi- 
 nate an effect 'without its causality itself beginning. In the former case the 
 concept of this causality is a concept of natural necessity, in the latter, that 
 of freedom. From this the reader will see, that, as I explained freedom to 
 be the faculty of starting an event spontaneously, I have exactly hit the nO' 
 tion which if the problem of metaphysics. . « 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? II 3 
 
 connexion with its subjective determining grounds 
 that are the natural causes of its actions, and is so far 
 the faculty of a being that itself belongs to appear- 
 ances, but is also referred to objective grounds, that 
 are only ideas, so far as they can determine this fac- 
 ulty, a connexion which is expressed by the word 
 ought. This faculty is called reason, and, so far as 
 we consider a being (man) entirely according to this 
 objectively determinable reason, he cannot be consid- 
 ered as a being of sense, but this property is that of a 
 thing in itself, of which we cannot comprehend the 
 possibility — I mean how the ought (which however 
 has never yet taken place) should determine its activ- 
 ity, and can become the cause of actions, whose effect 
 is an appearance in the sensible world. Yet the cau- 
 sality of reason would be freedom with regard to the 
 effects in the sensuous world, so far as we can con- 
 sider objective grounds, which are themselves ideas, 
 as their determinants. For its action in that case 
 would not depend upon subjective conditions, conse- 
 quently not upon those of time, and of course not 
 upon the law of nature, which serves to determine 
 them, because grounds of reason give to actions the 
 rule universally, according to principles, without the 
 influence of the circumstances of either time or place. 
 
 What I adduce here is merely meant as an ex- 
 ample to make the thing intelligible, and does not 
 necessarily belong to our problem, which must be de- 
 cided from mere concepts, independently of the prop- 
 erties which we meet in the actual world. 
 
 Now I may say without contradiction : that all the 
 actions of rational beings, so far as they are appear- 
 ances (occurring in any experience), are subject to 
 the necessity of nature ; but the same actions, as re- 
 
114 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 gards merely the rational subject and its faculty of 
 acting according to mere reason, are free. For what 
 is required for the necessity of nature? Nothing more 
 than the determinability of every event in the world 
 of sense according to constant laws, that is, a refer- 
 ence to cause in the appearance ; in this process the 
 thing in itself at its foundation and its causality re- 
 main unknown. But I say, that the law of nature 
 remains, whether the rational being is the cause of 
 the effects in the sensuous world from reason, that is, 
 through freedom, or whether it does not determine 
 them on grounds of reason. For, if the former is the 
 case, the action is performed according to maxims, 
 the effect of which as appearance is always conform- 
 able to constant laws ; if the latter is the case, and 
 the action not performed on principles of reason, it 
 is subjected to the empirical laws of the sensibility, 
 and in both cases the effects are connected according 
 to constant laws ; more than this we do not require 
 or know concerning natural necessity. But in the 
 former case reason is the cause of these laws of na- 
 ture, and therefore free ; in the latter the effects fol- 
 low according to mere natural laws of sensibility, be- 
 cause reason does not influence it ; but reason itself 
 is not determined on that account by the sensibility, 
 and is therefore free in this case too. Freedom is 
 therefore no hindrance to natural law in appearance, 
 neither does this law abrogate the freedom of the 
 practical use of reason, which is connected with 
 things in themselves, as determining grounds. 
 
 Thus practical freedom, viz., the freedom in which 
 reason possesses causality according to objectively 
 determining grounds, is rescued and yet natural ne- 
 cessity is not in the least curtailed with regard to the 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? IIS 
 
 very same effects, as appearances. The same remarks 
 will serve to explain what we had to say concerning 
 transcendental freedom and its compatibility with 
 natural necessity (in the same subject, but not taken 
 in the same reference). For, as to this, every begin- 
 ning of the action of a being from objective causes 
 regarded as determining grounds, is always a first 
 start, though the same action is in the series of ap- 
 pearances only a subordinate start, which must be 
 preceded by a state of the cause, which determines it, 
 and is itself determined in the same manner by an- 
 other immediately preceding. Thus we are able, in 
 rational beings, or in beings generally, so far as their 
 causality is determined in them as things in them- 
 selves, to imagine a faculty of beginning from itself 
 a series of states, without falling into contradiction 
 with the laws of nature. For the relation of the ac- 
 tion to objective grounds of reason is not a time-rela- 
 tion ; in this case that which determines the causality 
 does not precede in time the action, because such de- 
 termining grounds represent not a reference to objects 
 of sense, e. g., to causes in the appearances, but to 
 determining causes, as things in themselves, which do 
 not rank under conditions of time. And in this way 
 the action, with regard to the causality of reason, can 
 be considered as a first start in respect to the series of 
 appearances, and yet also as a merely subordinate be- 
 ginning. We may therefore without contradiction 
 consider it in the former aspect as free, but in the 
 latter (in so far as it is merely appearance) as subject 
 to natural necessity. 
 
 As to the fourth Antinomy, it is solved in the same 
 way as the conflict of reason with itself in the third. 
 For, provided the cause in the appearance is distin- 
 
Il6 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 guished from the cause of the appearance (so far as it 
 can be thought as a thing in itself), both propositions 
 are perfectly reconcilable : the one, that there is no- 
 where in the sensuous world a cause (according to 
 similar laws of causality), whose existence is abso- 
 lutely necessary ; the other, that this world is never- 
 theless connected with a Necessary Being as its cause 
 (but of another kind and according to another law). 
 The incompatibility of these propositions entirely rests 
 upon the mistake of extending what is valid merely 
 of appearances to things in themselves, and in gen- 
 eral confusing both in one concept. 
 
 § 54. This then is the proposition and this the so- 
 lution of the whole antinomy, in which reason finds 
 itself involved in the application of its principles to 
 the sensible world. The former alone (the mere prop- 
 osition) would be a considerable service in the cause 
 of our knowledge of human reason, even though the 
 solution might fail to fully satisfy the reader, who has 
 here to combat a natural illusion, which has been but 
 recently exposed to him, and which he had hitherto 
 always regarded as genuine. For one result at least 
 is unavoidable. As it is quite impossible to prevent 
 this conflict of reason with itself — so long as the ob- 
 jects of the sensible world are taken for things in 
 themselves, and not for mere appearances, which they 
 are in fact — the reader is thereby compelled to ex- 
 amine over again^the deduction of all our a priori cog- 
 nition and the proof which I have given of my deduc- 
 tion in order to come to a decision on the question. 
 This is all I require at present ; for when in this oc- 
 cupation he shall have thought himself deep enough 
 into tjie nature of pure reason, those concepts by 
 which alone the solution of the conflict of reason is 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? II 7 
 
 possible, will become sufficiently familiar to him. 
 Without this preparation I cannot expect an unre- 
 served assent even from the most attentive reader. 
 
 III. The Theological Ideay 
 
 § 55. The third transcendental Idea, which affords 
 matter for the most important, but, if pursued only 
 speculatively, transcendent and thereby dialectical 
 use of reason, is the ideal of pure reason. Reason in 
 this case does not, as with the psychological and the 
 cosmological Ideas, begin from experience, and err 
 by exaggerating its grounds, in striving to attain, if 
 possible, the absolute completeness of their series. It 
 rather totally breaks with experience, and from mere 
 concepts of what constitutes the absolute complete- 
 ness of a thing in general, consequently by means of 
 the idea of a most perfect primal Being, it proceeds 
 to determine the possibility and therefore the actuality 
 of all other things. And so the mere presupposition 
 of a Being, who is conceived not in the series of expe- 
 rience, yet for the purposes of experience — for the 
 sake of comprehending its connexion, order, and unity 
 — i. e., the idea [the notion of it], is more easily distin- 
 guished from the concept of the understanding here, 
 than in the former cases. Hence we can easily expose 
 the dialectical illusion which arises from our making 
 the subjective conditions of our thinking objective 
 conditions of objects themselves, and an hypothesis 
 necessary for the satisfaction of our reason, a dogma. 
 As the observations of the Critique on the preten- 
 sions of transcendental theology are intelligible, clear, 
 and decisive, I have nothing more to add on the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 ICI. Critique, the chapter on " Transcendental Ideals." 
 
ii8 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 General Remark on the Transcendental Ideas. 
 
 § 56. The objects, which are given us by experi- 
 ence, are in many respects incomprehensible, and 
 many questions, to which the law of nature leads us, 
 when carried beyond a certain point (though quite 
 conformably to the laws of nature), admit of no an- 
 swer; as for example the question: why substances 
 attract one another? But if we entirely quit nature, 
 or in pursuing its combinations, exceed all possible 
 experience, and so enter the realm of mere ideas, we 
 cannot then say that the object is incomprehensible, 
 and that the nature of things proposes to us insoluble' 
 problems. For we are not then concerned with na- 
 ture or in general with given objects, but with con- 
 cepts, which have their origin merely in our reason, 
 and with mere creations of thought; and all the prob- 
 lems that arise from our notions of them must be 
 solved, because of course reason can and must give 
 a full account of its own procedure.^ As the psycho- 
 logical, cosmological, and theological Ideas are noth- 
 ing but pure concepts of reason, which cannot be 
 given in any experience, the questions which reason 
 asks us about them are put to us not by the objects, 
 but by mere maxims of our reason for the sake of its 
 
 IHerr Plainer in his Aphorisms acutely says (§§ 738, 729), " If reason be a 
 criterion, no concept, which is incomprehensible to human reason, can be 
 possible. Incomprehensibility has place in what is actual only. Here in- 
 comprehensibility arises from the insu£&ciency of the acquired ideas." It 
 sounds paradoxical, but is otherwise not strange to say, that in nature there 
 is much incomprehensible (e.g., the faculty of generation) but if we mount 
 still higher, and even go beyond nature, everything again becomes compre- 
 hensible; for we then quit entirely the objects, which can be given us, and 
 occupy ourselves merely about ideas, in which occupation wd can easily 
 comprehend the law that reason prescribes by them to the understanding fdr 
 its use in experience, because the law is the reason's own production. 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? Iig 
 
 own satisfaction. They must all be capable of satis- 
 factory answers, which is done by showing that they 
 are principles which bring our use of the under- 
 standing into thorough agreement, completeness, and 
 synthetical unity, and that they so far hold good of 
 experience only, but of experience as a whole. 
 
 Although an absolute whole of experience is im- 
 possible, the idea of a whole of cognition according 
 to principles must impart to our knowledge a peculiar 
 kind of unity, that of a system, without which it is 
 nothing but piecework, and cannot be used for prov- 
 ing the existence of a highest purpose (which can 
 only be the general system of all purposes), I do not 
 here refer only to the practical, but also to the high- 
 est purpose of the speculative use of reason. 
 
 The transcendental Ideas therefore express the 
 peculiar application of reason as a principle of syste- 
 matic unity in the use of the understanding. Yet if 
 we assume this unity of the mode of cognition to be 
 attached to the object of cognition, if we regard that 
 which is merely regulative to be constitutive, and if 
 we persuade ourselves that we can by means of these 
 Ideas enlarge our cognition transcendently, or far be- 
 yond all possible experience, while it only serves to 
 render experience within itself as nearly complete as 
 possible, i. e., to limit its progress by nothing that 
 cannot belong to experience : we suffer from a mere 
 misunderstanding in our estimate of the proper appli- 
 cation of our reason and of its principles, and from a 
 Dialectic, which both confuses the empirical use of 
 reason, and also sets reason at variance with itself. 
 
I20 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 On the Determination of the Bounds of Pure Reason. 
 
 § 57. Having adduced the clearest arguments, it 
 would be absurd for us to hope that we can know 
 more of any object, than belongs to the possible ex- 
 perience of it, or lay claim to the least atom of knowl- 
 edge about anything not assumed to be an object of 
 possible experience, which would determine it accord- 
 ing to the constitution it has in itself. For how could 
 we determine anything in this way, since time, space, 
 and the categories, and still more all the concepts' 
 formed by empirical experience or perception in the 
 sensible world (Anschauung), have and can have no 
 other use, than to make experience possible. And if 
 this condition is omitted from the pure concepts of 
 the understanding, they do not determine any object, 
 and have no meaning whatever. 
 
 But it would be on the other hand a still greater 
 absurdity if we conceded no things in themselves, or 
 set up our experience for the only possible mode of 
 knowing things, our way of beholding (^Anschauung") 
 them in space and in time for the only possible way, 
 and our discursive understanding for the archetype of 
 every possible understanding ; in fact if we wished to 
 have the principles of the possibility of experience 
 considered universal conditions of things in them- 
 selves. 
 
 Our principles, which limit the use of reason to 
 , possible experience, might in this way become tran- 
 scendent, and the li];nits of our reason be set up as 
 limits of the possibility of things in themselves (as 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? 121 
 
 Hume's dialogues may illustrate), if a careful critique 
 did not guard the bounds of our reason with respect 
 to its empirical use, and set a limit to its pretensions. 
 Scepticism originally arose from metaphysics and its 
 licentious dialectics. At first it might, merely to favor 
 the empirical use of reason, announce everything that 
 transcends this use as worthless and deceitful ; but by 
 and by, when it was perceived that the very same 
 principles that are used in experience, insensibly, and 
 apparently with the same right, led still further than 
 experience extends, then men began to doubt even 
 the propositions of experience. But here there is no 
 danger; for common sense will doubtless always as- 
 sert its rights. A certain confusion, however, arose 
 in science which cannot determine how far reason is 
 to be trusted, and why only so far and no further, and 
 this confusion can only be cleared up and all future 
 relapses obviated by a formal determination, on prin- 
 ciple, of the boundary of the use of our reason. 
 
 We cannot indeed, beyond all possible experience, 
 form a definite notion of what things in themselves 
 may be. Yet we are not at liberty to abstain entirely 
 from inquiring into them ; for experience never satis- 
 fies reason fully, but in answering questions, refers us 
 further and further back, and leaves us dissatisfied 
 with regard to their complete solution. This any one 
 may gather from the Dialectics of pure reason, which 
 therefore has its good subjective grounds. Having 
 acquired, as regards the nature of our soul, a clear 
 conception of the subject, and having come to the 
 conviction, that its manifestations cannot be explained 
 materialistically, who can refrain from asking what 
 the soul really is, and, if no concept of experience 
 suffices for the purpose, from accounting for it by a 
 
122 Kant's prolegomena. 
 
 concept of reason (that of a simple immaterial being), 
 though we cannot by any means prove its objective 
 reality? Who can satisfy himself with mere empirical 
 knowledge in all the cosmological questions of the 
 duration and of the quantity of the world, of freedom 
 or of natural necessity, since every answer given on 
 principles of experience begets a fresh question, which 
 likewise requires its answer and thereby clearly shows 
 the insufficiency of all physical modes of explanation 
 to satisfy reason? Finally, who does not see in the 
 thorough-going contingency and dependence of all his 
 thoughts and assumptions on mere principles of ex- 
 perience, the impossibility of stopping there? And 
 who does not feel himself compelled, notwithstanding 
 all interdictions against losing himself in transcendent 
 ideas, to seek rest and contentment beyond all the 
 concepts which he can vindicate by experience, in the 
 concept of a Being, the possibility of which we can- 
 not conceive, but at the same time cannot be refuted, 
 because it relates to a mere being of the understand- 
 ing, and without it reason must needs remain forever 
 dissatisfied? 
 
 Bounds (in extended beings) always presuppose a 
 space existing outside a certain definite place, and in- 
 closing it; limits do not require this, but are mere 
 negations, which affect a quantity, so far as it is 
 not absolutely complete. But our reason, as it were, 
 sees in its surroundings a space for the cognition of 
 things in themselves, though we can never have defi- 
 nite notions of them, and are limited to appearances 
 only. 
 
 As long as the cognition of reason is homogene- 
 ous, definite bounds to it are inconceivable. In mathr 
 ematics and in natural philosophy human reason ad- 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? 123 
 
 mits of limits, but not of bounds, viz., that something 
 indeed lies without it, at which it can never arrive, 
 but not that it will at any point find completion in its 
 internal progress. The enlarging of our views in math- 
 ematics, and the possibility of new discoveries, are 
 infinite ; and the same is the case with the discovery 
 of new properties of nature, of new powers and laws, 
 by continued experience and its rational combination. 
 But limits cannot be mistaken here, for mathematics 
 refers to appearances only, and what cannot be an ob- 
 ject of sensuous contemplation, such as the concepts 
 of metaphysics and of morals, lies entirely without its 
 sphere, and it can never lead to them ; neither does 
 it require them. It is therefore not a continual pro- 
 gress and an approximation towards these sciences, 
 and there is not, as it were, any point or line of con- 
 tact. Natural science will never reveal to us the in- 
 ternal constitution of things, which though not ap- 
 pearance, yet can serve as the ultimate ground of 
 explaining appearance. Nor does that science require 
 this for its physical explanations. Nay even if such 
 grounds should be offered from other sources (for in- 
 stance, the influence of immaterial beings), they must 
 be rejected and not used in the progress of its explana- 
 tions. For these explanations must only be grounded 
 upon that which as an object of sense can belong to 
 experience, and be brought into connexion with our 
 actual perceptions and empirical laws. 
 
 But metaphysics leads us towards bounds in the 
 dialectical attempts of pure reason (not undertaken 
 arbitrarily or wantonly, but stimulated thereto by the 
 nature of reason itself). And the transcendental Ideas, 
 as they do not admit of evasion, and are never cap- 
 able of realisation, serve to point out to us actually 
 
124 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 not only the bounds of the pure use of reason, but also 
 the way to determine them. Such is the end and the 
 use of this natural predisposition of our reason, which 
 has brought forth metaphysics as its favorite child, 
 whose generation, like every other in the world, is not 
 to be ascribed to blind chance, but to an original 
 germ, wisely organised for great ends. For meta- 
 physics, in its fundamental features, perhaps more 
 than any other science, is placed in us by nature it- 
 self, and cannot be considered the production of an 
 arbitrary choice or a casual enlargement in the pro- 
 gress of experience from which it is quite disparate. 
 Reason with all its concepts and laws of the un- 
 derstanding, which suflSce for empirical use, i. e., 
 within the sensible world, finds in itself no satisfaction 
 because ever-recurring questions deprive us of all hope 
 of their complete solution. The transcendental ideas, 
 which have that completion in view, are such prob- 
 lems of reason. But it sees clearly, that the sensuous 
 world cannot contain this completion, neither conse- 
 quently can all the concepts, which serve merely for 
 understanding the world of sense, such as space and 
 time, and whatever we have adduced under the name 
 of pure concepts of the understanding. The sensuous 
 world is nothing but a chain of appearances connected 
 according to universal laws; it has therefore no sub- 
 sistence by itself; it is not the thing in itself, and 
 consequently must point to that which contains the 
 basis of this experience, to beings which cannot be 
 cognised merely as phenomena, but as things in them- 
 selves. In the cognition of them alone reason can 
 hope to satisfy its desire of completeness in proceed- 
 ing from the conditioned to its conditions. 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? 125 
 
 We have above (§§ 33, 34) indicated the limits of 
 reason with regard to all cognition of mere creations 
 of thought. Now, since the transcendental ideas have 
 urged us to approach them, and thus have led us, as 
 it were, to the spot where the occupied space (viz., 
 experience) touches the void (that of which we can 
 know nothing, viz., noumena), we can determine the 
 bounds of pure reason. For in all bounds there is 
 something positive (e. g., a surface is the boundary 
 of corporeal space, and is therefore itself a space, a 
 line is a space, which is the boundary of the surface, 
 a point the boundary of the line, but yet always a 
 place in space), whereas limits contain mere nega- 
 tions. The limits pointed out in those paragraphs are 
 not enough after we have discovered that beyond them 
 there still lies something (though we can never cog- 
 nise what it is in itself). For the question now is, 
 What is the attitude of our reason in this connexion 
 of what we know with what we do not, and never shall, 
 know? This is an actual connexion of a known thing 
 with one quite unknown (and which will always re- 
 main so), and though what is unknown should not 
 become the least more known — which we cannot even 
 hope — yet the notion of this connexion must be defi- 
 nite, and capable of being rendered distinct. 
 
 We must therefore accept an immaterial being, a 
 world of understanding, and a Supreme Being (all 
 mere noumena), because in them only, as things in 
 themselves, reason finds that completion and satisfac- 
 tion, which it can never hope for in the derivation of 
 appearances from their homogeneous grounds, and 
 because these actually have reference to something 
 distinct from them (and totally heterogeneous), as 
 appearances always presuppose an object in itself. 
 
126 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 and therefore suggest its existence whether we can 
 know more of it or not. 
 
 But as we can never cognise these beings of un- 
 derstanding as they are in themselves, that is, defi- 
 nitely, yet must assume them as regards the sensible 
 world, and connect them with it by reason, we are at 
 least able to think this connexion by means of such 
 concepts as express their relation to the world of 
 sense. Yet if we represent to ourselves a being of the 
 understanding by nothing but pure concepts of the 
 understanding, we then indeed represent nothing def- 
 inite to ourselves, consequently our concept has no 
 significance ; but if we think it by properties borrowed 
 from the sensuous world, it is no longer a being of un- 
 derstanding, but is conceived as an appearance, and 
 belongs to the sensible world. Let us take an in- 
 stance from the notion of the Supreme Being. 
 
 Our deistic conception is quite a pure concept of 
 reason, but represents only a thing containing all 
 realities, without being able to determine any one of 
 them ; because for that purpose an example must be 
 taken from the world of sense, in which case we should 
 have an object of sense only, not something quite 
 heterogeneous, which can never be an object of sense. 
 Suppose I attribute to the Supreme Being understand- 
 ing, for instance ; I have no concept of an understand- 
 ing other than my own, one that must receive its per- 
 ceptions (^Anschauung) by the senses, and which is 
 occupied in bringing them under rules of the unity of 
 consciousness. Then the elements of my concept 
 would always lie in the appearance ; I should how- 
 ever by the insufficiency of the appearance be neces- 
 sitated to go beyond them to the concept of a being 
 which neither depends upon appearance, nor is bound 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? 1 27 
 
 up with them as conditions of its determination. But 
 if I separate understanding from sensibility to obtain 
 a pure understanding, then nothing remains but the 
 mere form of thinking without perception (Anschau- 
 ung), by which form alone I can cognise nothing def- 
 inite, and consequently no object. For that purpose 
 I should conceive another understanding, such as 
 would directly perceive its objects, ^ but of which I 
 have not the least notion ; because the human under- 
 standing is discursive, and can [not directly perceive, 
 it can] only cognise by means of general concepts. 
 And the very same difficulties arise if we attribute a 
 will to the Supreme Being ; for we have this concept 
 only by drawing it from our internal experience, and 
 therefore from our dependence for satisfaction upon 
 objects whose existence we require ; and so the notion 
 rests upon sensibility, which is absolutely incompatible 
 with the pure concept of the Supreme Being. 
 
 Hume's objections to deism are weak, and affect 
 only the proofs, and not the deistic assertion itself. 
 But as regards theism, which depends on a stricter 
 determination of the concept of the Supreme Being 
 which in deism is merely transcendent, they are very 
 strong, and as this concept is formed, in certain (in 
 fact in all common) cases irrefutable. Hume always 
 insists, that by the mere concept of an original being, 
 to which we apply only ontological predicates (eter- 
 nity, omnipresence, omnipotence), we think nothing 
 definite, and that properties which can yield a con- 
 cept in concreto must be superadded ; that it is not 
 enough to say, it is Cause, but we must explain the 
 nature of its causality, for example, that of an under- 
 standing and of a will. He then begins his attacks 
 
 XDtr die Gegenstande ansckawte. 
 
128 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 on the essential point itself, i. e., theism, as he had 
 previously directed his battery only against the proofs 
 of deism, an attack which is not very dangerous to it 
 in its consequences. All his dangerous arguments 
 refer to anthropomorphism, which he holds to be in- 
 separable from theism, and to make it absurd in it- 
 self J but if the former be abandoned, the latter must 
 vanish with it, and nothing remain but deism, of which 
 nothing can come, which is of no value, and which 
 cannot serve as any foundation to religion or morals. 
 If this anthropomorphism were really unavoidable, no 
 proofs whatever of the existence of a Supreme Being, 
 even were they all granted, could determine for us the 
 concept of this Being without involving us in contra- 
 dictions. 
 
 If we connect with the command to avoid all tran- 
 scendent judgments of pure reason, the command 
 (which apparently conflicts with it) to proceed to con- 
 cepts that lie beyond the field of its immanent (em- 
 pirical) use, we discover that both can subsist to- 
 gether, but only at the boundary of all lawful use of 
 reason. For this boundary belongs as well to the field 
 of experience, as to that of the creations of thought, 
 and we are thereby taught, as well, how these so re- 
 markable ideas serve merely for marking the bounds 
 of human reason. On the one hand they give warning 
 not boundlessly to extend cognition of experience, as 
 if nothing but world ^ remained for us to cognise, and 
 yet, on the other hand, not to transgress the bounds 
 of experience, and to think of judging about things 
 beyond them, as things in themselves. 
 
 But we stop at this boundary if we limit our judg- 
 
 ITheuseof the word "world" without article, though odd, seems to be 
 the correct reading, but it ma; be a mere misprint,— £<^. 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? 1 29 
 
 ment merely to the relation which the world may have 
 to a Being whose very concept lies beyond all the 
 knowledge which we can attain within the world. For 
 we then do not attribute to the Supreme Being any of 
 the properties in themselves, by which we represent 
 objects of experience, and thereby avoid dogmatic an- 
 thropomorphism ; but we attribute them to his rela- 
 tion to the world, and allow ourselves a symbolical 
 anthropomorphism, which in fact concerns language 
 only, and not the object itself. 
 
 If I say that we are compelled to consider the 
 world, as if it were the work of a Supreme Under- 
 standing and Will, I really say nothing more, than 
 that a watch, a ship, a regiment, bears the same rela- 
 tion to the watchmaker, the shipbuilder, the com- 
 manding officer, as the world of sense (or whatever 
 constitutes the substratum of this complex of appear- 
 ances) does to the Unknown, which I do not hereby 
 cognise as it is in itself, but as it is for me or in rela 
 tion to the world, of which I am a part. 
 
 § 58. Such a cognition is one of analogy, and does 
 not signify (as is commonly understood) an imperfect 
 similarity of two things, but a perfect similarity of rela- 
 tions between two quite dissimilar things.' By means 
 
 iThere is, e.g., an analogy between the juridical relation of human actions 
 and the mechanical relation of motive powers. I never can do anything to an- 
 other man without giving him a right to do the same to me on the same con- 
 ditions ; just as no mass can act with its motive power on another mass with- 
 out thereby occasioning the other to react equally against it. Here right and 
 motive power are quite dissimilar things, but in their relation there is com- 
 plete similarity. By means of such an analogy I can obtain a notion of the 
 relation of things which absolutely are unknown to me. For instance, as the 
 promotion olthe welfare of children (= a) is to the love of parents (= b), go 
 the welfare of the human species (= c) is to that unknown [quantity which is] 
 in God (=x), which we call'love; not as if it had the least similarity to any 
 human inclination, but because we can suppose its relation to the world to 
 be similar to that which things of the world bear one another. But the con- 
 
I30 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 of this analogy, however, there remains a concept of 
 the Supreme Being sufficiently determined for us, 
 though we have left out everything that could deter- 
 mine it absolutely or in itself ; for we determine it as 
 regards the world and as regards ourselves, and more 
 do we not require. The attacks which Hume makes 
 upon those who would determine this concept abso- 
 lutely, by taking the materials for so doing from 
 themselves and the world, do not affect us ; and he 
 cannot object to us, that we have nothing left if we 
 give up the objective anthropomorphism of the con- 
 cept of the Supreme Being. 
 
 For let us assume at the outset (as Hume in his 
 dialogues makes Philo grant Cleanthes), as a neces- 
 sary hypothesis, the deistical concept of the First Be- 
 ing, in which this Being is thought by the mere onto- 
 logical predicates of substance, of cause, etc. This 
 must be done, because reason, actuated in the sen- 
 sible world by mere conditions, which are themselves 
 always conditional, cannot otherwise have any satis- 
 faction, and it therefore can be done without falling 
 into anthropomorphism (which transfers predicates 
 from the world of sense to a Being quite distinct from 
 the world), because those predicates are mere catego- 
 ries, which, though they do not give a determinate 
 concept of God, yet give a concept not limited to any 
 conditions of sensibility. Thus nothing can prevent 
 our predicating of this Being a causality through rea- 
 son with regard to the world, and thus passing to the- 
 ism, without being obliged to attribute to God in 
 himself this kind of reason, as a property inhering in 
 him. For as to the former, the only possible way of 
 
 cept of relation in this case is a mere category, viz., the concept of cause, 
 which has nothing to do with sensibility. 
 
ttOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENKRAL POSSIBLE? ijt 
 
 prosecuting the use of reason (as regards all possible 
 experience, in complete harmony with itself) in the 
 world of sense to the highest point, is to assume a 
 supreme reason as a cause of all the connexions in 
 the world. Such a principle must be quite advantage- 
 ous to reason and can hurt it nowhere in its applica- 
 tion to nature. As to the latter, reason is thereby 
 not transferred as a property to the First Being in 
 himself, but only to his relation to the world of sense, 
 and so anthropomorphism is entirely avoided. For 
 nothing is considered here but the cause of the form 
 of reason which is perceived everywhere in the world, 
 and reason is attributed to the Supreme Being, so far 
 as it contains the ground of this form of reason in the 
 world, but according to analogy only, that is, so far 
 as this expression shows merely the relation, which 
 the Supreme Cause unknown to us has to the world, 
 in order to determine everything in it conformably to 
 reason in the highest degree. We are thereby kept 
 from using reason as an attribute for the purpose of 
 conceiving God, but instead of conceiving the world 
 in such a manner as is necessary to have the greatest 
 possible use of reason according to principle. We 
 thereby acknowledge that the Supreme Being is quite 
 inscrutable and even unthinkable in any definite way 
 as to what he is in himself. We are thereby kept, on 
 the one hand, from making a transcendent use of the 
 concepts which we have of reason as an efficient cause 
 (by means of the will), in order to determine the Di- 
 vine Nature by properties, which are only borrowed 
 from human nature, and from losing ourselves in 
 gross and extravagant notions, and on the other hand 
 from deluging the contemplation of the world with 
 hyperphysical modes of explanation according to our 
 
132 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 notions of human reason, which we transfer to God, 
 and so losing for this contemplation its proper appli- 
 cation, according to which it should be a rational 
 study of mere nature, and not a presumptuous deriva- 
 tion of its appearances from a Supreme Reason. The 
 expression suited to our feeble notions is, that we con- 
 ceive the world as if it came, as to its existence and 
 internal plan, from a Supreme Reason, by which no- 
 tion we both cognise the constitution, which belongs 
 to the world itself, yet without pretending to deter- 
 mine the nature of its cause in itself, and on the other 
 hand, we transfer the ground of this constitution (of 
 the form of reason in the world) upon the relation of 
 the Supreme Cause to the world, without finding the 
 world sufficient by itself for that purpose. ^ 
 
 Thus the difficulties which seem to oppose theism 
 disappear by combining with Hume's principle — "not 
 to carry the use of reason dogmatically beyond the 
 field of all possible experience" — this other principle, 
 which he quite overlooked: "not to consider the field 
 of experience as one which bounds itself in the eye of 
 our reason." The Critique of Pure Reason here points 
 out the true mean between dogmatism, which Hume 
 combats, and skepticism, which he would substitute 
 for it — a mean which is not like other means that we 
 find advisable to determine for ourselves as it were 
 mechanically (by adopting something from one side 
 and something from the other), and by which nobody 
 
 II may sajr, that the causality ol ths Supreme Gauss holds the same 
 place with regard to the world that human reason does with regard to its 
 works of art. Here the nature of the Supreme Cause itself remains unknown 
 to me : I only compare its effects (the order of the world) which I know, and 
 theirconformity to reason, to the effects of human reason which I also know; 
 and hence I term the former reason, without attributing to it on that account 
 what I understand in man by this term, or attaching to it anything else 
 known to me, as its property. 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? 1 33 
 
 is taught a better way, but such a one as can be ac- 
 curately determined on principles. 
 
 § 59. At the beginning of this annotation I made 
 use of the metaphor of a boundary, in order to estab- 
 lish the limits of reason in regard to its suitable use. 
 The world of sense contains merely appearances, 
 which are not things in themselves, but the under- 
 standing must assume these latter ones, viz., noumena. 
 In our reason both are comprised, and the question 
 is, How does reason proceed to set boundaries to the 
 understanding as regards both these fields ? Experi- 
 ence, which contains all that belongs to the sensuous 
 world, does not bound itself; it only proceeds in 
 every case from the conditioned to some other equally 
 conditioned object. Its boundary must lie quite with- 
 out it, and this field is that of the pure beings of the 
 understanding. But this field, so far as the determi- 
 nation of the nature of these beings is concerned, is 
 an empty space for us, and if dogmatically-determined 
 concepts alone are in question, we cannot pass out of 
 the field of possible experience. But as a boundary 
 itself is something positive, which belongs as well to 
 that which lies within, as to the space that lies with- 
 out the given complex, it is still an actual positive 
 cognition, which reason only acquires by enlarging 
 itself to this boundary, yet without attempting to pass 
 it; because it there finds itself in the presence of an 
 empty space, in which it can conceive forms of things, 
 but not things themselves. But the setting of a bound- 
 ary to the field of the understanding by something, 
 which is otherwise unknown to it, is still a cognition 
 which belongs to reason even at this standpoint, and 
 by which it is neither confined within the sensible, 
 nor straying without it, but only refers, as befits the 
 
134 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 knowledge of a boundary, to the relation between that 
 which lies without it, and that which is contained 
 within it. 
 
 Natural theology is such a concept at the bound- 
 ary of human reason, being constrained to look be- 
 yond this boundary to the Idea of a Supreme Being 
 (and, for practical purposes to that of an intelligible 
 world also), not in order to determine anything rela- 
 tively to this pure creation of the understanding, which 
 lies beyond the world of sense, but in order to guide 
 the use of reason within it according to principles of 
 the greatest possible (theoretical as well as practical) 
 unity. For this purpose we make use of the reference 
 of the world of sense to an independent reason, as the 
 cause of all its connexions. Thereby we do not purely 
 invent a being, but, as beyond the sensible world 
 there must be something that can only be thought by 
 the pure understanding, we determine that something 
 in this particular way, though only of course accord- 
 ing to analogy. 
 
 And thus there remains our original proposition, 
 which is the rdsumi oi the whole Critique: "that rea- 
 son by all its «/rwr? principles never teaches us any- 
 thing more than objects of possible experience, and 
 even of these nothing more than can be cognised in 
 experience." But this limitation does not prevent 
 reason leading us to the objective boundary of experi- 
 ence, viz., to the reference to something which is not 
 itself an object of experience, but is the ground of all 
 experience. Reason does not however teach us any- 
 thing concerning the thing in itself : it only instructs 
 us as regards its own complete and highest use in the 
 field of possible experience. But this is all that can 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL, POSSIBLE? 1 35 
 
 be reasonably desired in the present case, and with 
 which we have cause to be satisfied. 
 
 § 60. Thus we have fully exhibited metaphysics as 
 it is actually given in the natural predisposition of hu- 
 man reason, and in that which constitutes the essen- 
 tial end of its pursuit, according to its subjective pos- 
 sibility. Though we have found, that this merely 
 natural use of such a predisposition of our reason, if 
 no discipline arising only from a scientific critique 
 bridles and sets limits to it, involves us in transcendent, 
 either apparently or really conflicting, dialectical syl- 
 logisms ; and this fallacious metaphysics is not only 
 unnecessary as regards the promotion of our knowl- 
 edge of nature, but even disadvantageous to it : there 
 yet remains a problem worthy of solution, which is to 
 find out the natural ends intended by this disposition 
 to transcendent concepts in our reason, because every- 
 thing that lies in nature must be originally intended 
 for some useful purpose. 
 
 Such an inquiry is of a doubtful nature; and I 
 acknowledge, that what I can say about it is conjec- 
 ture only, like every speculation about the first ends 
 of nature. The question does not concern the objec- 
 tive validity of metaphysical judgments, but our nat- 
 ural predisposition to them, and therefore does not 
 belong to the system of metaphysics but to anthro- 
 pology. 
 
 When I compare all the transcendental Ideas, the 
 totality of which constitutes the particular problem of 
 natural pure reason, compelling it to quit the mere 
 contemplation of nature, to transcend all possible ex- 
 perience, and in this endeavor to produce the thing 
 (be it knowledge or fiction) called metaphysics, I think 
 I perceive that the aim of this natural tendency is, to 
 
136 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 free our notions from the fetters of experience and 
 from the limits of the mere contemplation of nature 
 so far as at least to open to us a field containing mere 
 objects for the pure understanding, which no sensi- 
 bility can reach, not indeed for the purpose of specu- 
 latively occupying ourselves with them (for there we 
 can find no ground to stand on), but because practical 
 principles, which, without finding some such scope 
 for their necessary expectation and hope, could not 
 expand to the universality which reason unavoidably 
 requires from a moral point of view. 
 
 So I find that the Psychological Idea (however 
 little it may reveal to me the "nature of the human 
 soul, which is higher than all concepts of experience), 
 shows the insufficiency of these concepts plainly 
 enough, and thereby deters me from materialism, the 
 psychological notion of which is unfit for any explana- 
 tion of nature, and besides confines reason in prac- 
 tical respects. The Cosmological Ideas, by the ob- 
 vious insufficiency of all possible cognition of nature 
 to satisfy reason in its lawful inquiry, serve in the 
 same manner to keep us from naturalism, which as- 
 serts nature to be sufficient for itself. Finally, all 
 natural necessity in the sensible world is conditional, 
 as it always presupposes the dependence of. things 
 upon others> and unconditional necessity must be 
 sought only in the unity of a cause different from the 
 world of sense. But as the causality of this cause, in 
 its turn, were it merely nature, could never render 
 the existence of the contingent (as its consequent) 
 comprehensible, reason frees itself by means of the 
 Theological Idea from fatalism, (both as a blind nat- 
 ural necessity in the coherence of nature itself, with- 
 out a first principle, and as a blind causality of this 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? 1 37 
 
 principle itself), and leads to the concept of a cause 
 possessing freedom, or of a Supreme Intelligence. 
 Thus the transcendental Ideas serve, if not to instruct 
 us positively, at least to destroy the rash assertions of 
 Materialism, of Naturalism, and of Fatalism, and thus 
 to afford scope for the moral Ideas beyond the field of 
 speculation. These considerations, I should think, 
 explain in some measure the natural predisposition of 
 which I spoke. 
 
 The practical value, which a merely speculative 
 science may have, lies without the bounds of this sci- 
 ence, and can therefore be considered as a scholion 
 merely, and like all scholia does not form part of the 
 science itself. This application however surely lies 
 within the bounds of philosophy, especially of philos- 
 ophy drawn from the pure sources of reason, where 
 its speculative use in metaphysics must necessarily be 
 at unity with its practical use in morals. Hence the 
 unavoidable dialectics of pure reason, considered in 
 metaphysics, as a natural tendency, deserves to be 
 explained not as an illusion merely, which is to be re- 
 moved, but also, if possible, as a natural provision as 
 regards its end, though this duty, a work of super- 
 erogation, cannot justly be assigned to metaphysics 
 proper. 
 
 The solutions of these questions which are treated 
 in the chapter on the Regulative Use of the Ideas of 
 Pure Reason^ should be considered a second scholion 
 which however has a greater affinity with the subject 
 of metaphysics. For there certain rational principles 
 are expounded which determine a priori the order of 
 nature or rather of the understanding, which seeks 
 nature's laws through experience. They seem to be 
 
 I Critique of Pure Reason, II., chap. III,, section 7, 
 
138 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 constitutive and legislative with regard to experience, 
 though they spring from pure reason, which cannot 
 be considered, like the understanding, as a principle 
 of possible experience. Now whether or not this har- 
 mony rests upon the fact, that just as nature does not 
 inhere in appearances or in their source (the sensibil- 
 ity) itself, but only in so far as the latter is in relation 
 to the understanding, as also a systematic unity in 
 applying the understanding to bring about an entirety 
 of all possible experience can only belong to the un- 
 derstanding when in relation to reason ; and whether 
 or not experience is in this way mediately subordinate 
 to the legislation of reason: may be discussed by 
 those who desire to trace the nature of reason even 
 beyond its use in metaphysics, into the general prin- 
 ciples of a history of nature ; I have represented this 
 task as important, but not attempted its solution, in 
 the book itself. ^ 
 
 And thus I conclude the analytical solution of the 
 main question which I had proposed : How is meta- 
 physics in general possible? by ascending from the 
 data of its actual use in its consequences, to the 
 grounds of its possibility. 
 
 ^Throughout in the Criiiqite 1 never lost sight of the plan not to neglect 
 anything, were it ever so recondite, that could render the inquiry into the 
 nature of pure reason complete. Everybody may afterwards carry his re- 
 searches as far as he pleases, when he has been merely shown what yet re- 
 mains to be done. It is this a duty which must reasonably be expected of 
 him who has made it his business to survey the whole field, in order to con- 
 sign it to others for future cultivation and allotment. And to this branch 
 both the scholia belong, which will hardly recommend themselves by their 
 dryness to amateurs, and hence are added here for connoisseurs only. 
 
SCHOUA. 
 
 SOLUTION OF THE GENERAL QUESTION OF THE 
 
 PROLEGOMENA, "HOW IS METAPHYSICS 
 
 POSSIBLE AS A SCIENCE?" 
 
 METAPHYSICS, as a natural disposition of rea- 
 son, is actual, but if considered by itself alone 
 (as the analytical solution of the third principal ques- 
 tion showed), dialectical and illusory. If we think of 
 taking principles from it, and in using them follow 
 the natural, but on that account not less false, illu- 
 sion, we can never produce science, but only a vain 
 dialectical art, in which one school may outdo an- 
 other, but none can ever acquire a just and lasting 
 approbation. 
 
 In order that as a science metaphysics may be en- 
 titled to claim not mere fallacious plausibility, but in- 
 sight and conviction, a Critique of Reason must itself 
 exhibit the whole stock of a priori concepts, their di- 
 vision according to their various sources (Sensibility, 
 Understanding, and Reason), together with a com- 
 plete table of them, the analysis of all these concepts, 
 with all their consequences, especially by means of 
 the deduction of these concepts, the possibility of 
 synthetical cognition a priori, the principles of its ap- 
 plication and finally its bounds, all in a complete sys- 
 tem. Critique, therefore, and critique alone, contains 
 in itself the whole well-proved and well-tested plan. 
 
140 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 and even all the means required to accomplish meta- 
 physics, as a science ; by other ways and means it is 
 impossible. The question here therefore is not so 
 much how this performance is possible, as how to set 
 it going, and induce men of clear heads to quit their 
 hitherto perverted and fruitless cultivation for one 
 that will not deceive, and how such a union for the 
 common end may best be directed. 
 
 This much is certain, that whoever has once tasted 
 Critique will be ever after disgusted with all dogmati- 
 cal twaddle which he formerly put up with, because 
 his reason must have something, and could find noth- 
 ing better for its support. 
 
 Critique stands in the same relation to the com- 
 mon metaphysics of the schools, as chemistry does to 
 alchemy, or as astronomy to the astrology of the for- 
 tune-teller. I pledge myself that nobody who has 
 read through and through, and grasped the principles 
 of, the Critique even in these Prolegomena only, will 
 ever return to that old and sophistical pseudo-science; 
 but will rather with- a certain delight look forward to 
 metaphysics which is now indeed in his power, re- 
 quiring no more preparatory discoveries, and now at 
 last affording permanent satisfaction to reason. For 
 here is an advantage upon which, of all possible sci- 
 ences, metaphysics alone can with certainty reckon : 
 that it can be brought to such completion and fixity 
 as' to be incapable of further change, or of any aug- 
 mentation by new discoveries; because here reason 
 has the sources of its knowledge in itself, not in ob- 
 jects and their observation (Anschauung), by which 
 latter its stock of knowledge cannot be further in- 
 creased. When therefore it has exhibited the funda- 
 mental laws of its faculty completely and so definitely 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS POSSIBLE AS A SCIENCE? I4I 
 
 as to avoid all misunderstanding, there remains noth- 
 ing for pure reason to cognise a priori, nay, there is 
 even no ground to raise further questions. The sure 
 prospect of knowledge so definite and so compact has 
 a peculiar charm, even though we should set aside all 
 its advantages, of which I shall hereafter speak. 
 
 All false art, all vain wisdom, lasts its time, but 
 finally destroys itself, and its highest culture is also 
 the epoch of its decay. That this time is come ior 
 metaphysics appears from the state into which it has 
 fallen among all learned nations, despite of all the 
 zeal with which other sciences of every kind are pros- 
 ecuted. The old arrangement of our university studies 
 still preserves its shadow ; now and then an Academy 
 of Science tempts men by offering prizes to write 
 essays on it, but it is no longer numbered among 
 thorough sciences ; and let any one judge for himself 
 how a man of genius, if he were called a great meta- 
 physician, would receive the compliment, which may 
 be well-meant, but is scarce envied by anybody. 
 
 Yet, though the period of the downfall of all dog- 
 matical metaphysics has undoubtedly arrived, we are 
 yet far from being able to say that the period of its 
 regeneration is come by means of a thorough and 
 complete Critique of Reason. All transitions from a 
 tendency to its contrary pass through the stage of in- 
 difference, and this moment is the most dangerous for 
 an author, but, in my opinion, the most favorable for 
 the science. For, when party spirit has died out by 
 a total dissolution of former connexions, minds are in 
 the "best state to listen to several proposals for an or- 
 ganisation according to a new plan. 
 
 When I say, that I hope these Prolegomena will 
 excite investigation in the field of critique and afford 
 
142 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 a new and promising object to sustain the general 
 spirit of philosophy, which seems on its speculative 
 side to want sustenance, I can imagine beforehand, 
 that every one, whom the thorny paths of my Critique 
 have tired and put out of humor, will ask me, upon 
 what I found this hope. My answer is, upon the irre- 
 sistible law of necessity. 
 
 That the human mind will ever give up metaphys- 
 ical researches is as little to be expected as that we 
 should prefer to give up breathing altogether, to avoid 
 inhaling impure air. There will therefore always be 
 metaphysics in the world ; nay, every one, especially 
 every man of reflexion, will have it, and for want of a 
 recognised standard, will shape it for himself after his 
 own pattern. What has hitherto been called meta- 
 physics, cannot satisfy any critical mind, but to forego 
 it entirely is impossible.; therefore a Critique of Pure 
 Reason itself s.iust now be attempted or, if one exists, 
 investigated, and brought to the full test, because 
 there is no other means of supplying this pressing 
 want, which is something more than mere thirst for 
 knowledge. 
 
 Ever since I have come to know critique, when- 
 ever I finish reading a book of metaphysical contents, 
 which, by the preciseness of its notions, by variety, 
 order, and an easy style, was not only entertaining 
 but also helpful, I cannot help asking, " Has this 
 author indeed advanced metaphysics a single step?" 
 The learned men, whose works have been useful to 
 me in other respects and always contributed to the 
 culture of my mental powers, will, I hope, forgive me 
 for saying, that I have never been able to find either 
 their essays or my own less important ones (though 
 self-love may recommend them to me) to have ad- 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS POSSIBLE AS A SCIENCE? I43 
 
 vanced the science of metaphysics in the least, and 
 why? 
 
 Here is the very obvious reason : metaphysics did 
 not then exist as a science, nor can it be gathered 
 piecemeal, but its germ must be fully preformed in 
 the Critique. But in order to prevent all misconcep- 
 tion, we must remember what has been already said, 
 that by the analytical treatment of our concepts the 
 understanding gains indeed a great deal, but the 
 science (of metaphysics) is thereby not in the least 
 advanced, because these dissections of concepts are 
 nothing but the materials from which the intention is 
 to carpenter our science. Let the concepts of sub- 
 stance and of accident be ever so well dissected and 
 determined, all this is very well as a preparation for 
 some future use. But if we cannot prove, that in all 
 which exists the substance endures, and only the ac- 
 cidents vary, our science is not the least advanced 
 by all our analyses. 
 
 Metaphysics has hitherto never been able to prove 
 a priori either this proposition, or that of sufficient 
 reason, still less any more complex theorem, such as 
 belongs to psychology or cosmology, or indeed any 
 synthetical proposition. By all its analysing therefore 
 nothing is affected, nothing obtained or forwarded, 
 and the science, after all this bustle and noise, still 
 remains as it was in the days of Aristotle, though 
 far better preparations were made for it than of old, 
 if the clue to synthetical cognitions had only been 
 discovered. 
 
 if any one thinks himself offended, he is at liberty 
 to refute my charge by producing a single synthetical 
 proposition belonging to metaphysics, which he would 
 prove dogmatically a priori, for until he has actually 
 
144 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 performed this feat, I shall not grant that he has truly 
 advanced the science ; even should this proposition be 
 sufSciently confirmed by common experience. No de- 
 mand can be more moderate or more equitable, and 
 in the (inevitably certain) event of its non-perform- 
 ance, no assertion more just, than that hitherto meta- 
 physics has never existed as a science. 
 
 But there are two things which, in case the chal- 
 lenge be accepted, I must deprecate : first, trifling 
 about probability and conjecture, which are suited as 
 little to metaphysics, as to geometry ; and secondly, 
 a decision by means of the magic wand of common 
 sense, which does not convince every one, but which 
 accommodates itself to personal peculiarities. 
 
 For as to the former, nothing can be more absurd, 
 than in metaphysics, a philosophy from pure reason 
 to think of grounding our judgments upon probability 
 and conjecture. Everything that is to be cognised a 
 priori, is thereby announced as apodeictically certain, 
 and must therefore be proved in this way. We might 
 as well think of grounding geometry or arithmetic 
 upon "conjectures. As to the doctrine of chances in 
 the latter, it does not contain probable, but perfectly 
 certain, judgments concerning the degree of the prob- 
 ability of certain cases, under given uniform condi- 
 tions, which, in the sum of all possible cases, infallibly 
 happen according to the rule, though it is not suffi- 
 ciently determined in respect to every single chance. 
 Conjectures (by means of induction and of analogy) 
 can be suffered in an empirical science of nature only, 
 yet even there the possibility at least of what we as- 
 sume must be quite certain. 
 
 The appeal to common sense is even more absurd, 
 when concept and principles are announced as valid. 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS POSSIBLE AS A SCIENCE? 145 
 
 not in so far as they hold with regard to experience, 
 but even beyond the conditions of experience. For 
 what is common sense? It is normal good sense, so 
 far it judges right. But what is normal good sense? 
 It is the faculty of the knowledge and use of rules in 
 concreto, as distinguished from the speculative under- 
 standing, which is a faculty of knowing rules in ab- 
 stracio. Common sense can hardly understand the 
 rule, " that every event is determined by means of its 
 cause," and can never comprehend it thus generally. 
 It therefore demands an example from experience, 
 and when it hears that this rule means nothing but 
 what it always thought when a pane was broken or a 
 kitchen-utensil missing, it then understands the prin- 
 ciple and grants it. Common sense therefore is only 
 of use so far as it can see its rules (though they actu- 
 ally are a priori^ confirmed by experience; conse- 
 quently to comprehend them a priori, or independently 
 of experience, belongs to the speculative understand- 
 ing, and lies quite beyond the horizon of common 
 sense. But the province of metaphysics is entirely 
 confined to the latter kind of knowledge, and it is cer- 
 tainly a bad index of common sense to appeal to it as 
 a witness, for it cannot here form any opinion what- 
 ever, and men look down upon it with contempt until 
 they are in difficulties, and can find in their specula- 
 tion neither in nor out. 
 
 It is a common subterfuge of those false friends of 
 common sense (who occasionally prize it highly, but 
 usually despise it) to say, that there must surely be 
 at ail events some propositions which are immediately 
 certain, and of which there is no occasion to give any 
 proof, or even any account at all, because we other- 
 wise could never stop inquiring into the grounds of 
 
146 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 our judgments. But if we except the principle of 
 contradiction, which is not sufficient to show the truth 
 of synthetical judgments, they can never adduce, in 
 proof of this privilege, anything else indubitable, 
 which they can immediately ascribe to common sense, 
 except mathematical propositions, such as twice two 
 make four, between two points there is but one 
 straight line, etc. But these judgments are radically 
 different from those of metaphysics. For in mathe- 
 matics I myself can by thinking construct whatever I 
 represent to myself as possible by a concept : I add 
 to the first two the other two, one by one, and myself 
 make the number four, or I draw in thought from one 
 point to another all manner of lines, equal as well as 
 unequal ; yet I can draw one only, which is like itself 
 in all its parts. But I cannot, by all my power of 
 thinking, extract from the Concept of a thing the con- 
 cept of something else, whose existence is necessarily 
 connected with the former, but I must call in experi- 
 ence. And though my understanding furnishes me 
 a priori (yet only in reference to possible experience) 
 with the concept of such a connexion (i. e., causation), 
 I cannot exhibit it, like the concepts of mathematics, 
 by (^Anschauung) visualising them, a priori, and so 
 show its possibility a priori. This concept, together 
 with the principles of its application, always requires, 
 if it shall hold a priori — as is requisite in metaphysics 
 -^a justification and deduction of its possibility, be- 
 cause we cannot otherwise know how far it holds 
 good, and whether it can be used in experience only 
 or beyond it also. 
 
 Therefore in metaphysics, as a speculative science 
 of pure reason, we can never appeal to common sense, 
 but may do so only when we are forced to surrender 
 
HOW IS METAPHYSICS POSSIBLE AS A SCIENCE? I47 
 
 it, and to renounce all purely speculative cognition, 
 which must always be knowledge, and consequently 
 when we forego metaphysics itself and its instruction, 
 for the sake of adopting a rational faith which alone 
 may be possible for us, and sufficient to our wants, 
 perhaps even more salutary than knowledge itself. 
 For in this case the attitude of the question is quite 
 altered. Metaphysics must be science, not only as a 
 whole, but in all its parts, otherwise it is nothing; 
 because, as a speculation of pure reason, it finds a 
 hold only on general opinions. Beyond its field, how- 
 ever, probability and common sense may be used with 
 advantage and justly, but on quite special principles, 
 of which the importance always depends on the refer- 
 ence to practical life. 
 
 This is what I hold myself justified in requiring 
 for the possibility of metaphysics as a science. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 ON WHAT CAN BE DONE TO MAKE METAPHYSICS 
 ACTUAL AS A SCIENCE. 
 
 SINCE all the ways heretofore taken have failed to 
 attain the goal, and since without a preceding 
 critique of pure reason it is not likely ever to be at- 
 tained, the present essay now before the public has a 
 fair title to an accurate and careful investigation, ex- 
 cept it be thought more advisable to give up all pre- 
 tensions to metaphysics, to which, if men but would 
 consistently adhere to their purpose, no objection can 
 be made. 
 
 If we take the course of things as it is, not as it 
 ought to be, there are two sorts of judgments: (i) one 
 a judgment which precedes investigation (in our case 
 one in which the reader from his own metaphysics 
 pronounces judgment on the Critique of Pure Reason 
 which was intended to discuss the very possibility of 
 metaphysics); (2) the other a judgment subsequent to 
 investigation. In the latter the reader is enabled to 
 waive for awhile the consequences of the critical 
 researches that may be repugnant to his formerly 
 adopted metaphysics, and first examines the grounds 
 whence those consequences are derived. If what 
 common metaphysics propounds were demonstrably 
 certain, as for instance the theorems of geometry, the 
 former way of judging would hold good. For' if the 
 
APPENDIX. 149 
 
 consequences of certain principles are repugnant to 
 established truths, these principles are false and with- 
 out further inquiry to be repudiated. But if meta- 
 physics does not possess a stock of indisputably cer- 
 tain (synthetical) propositions, and should it even be 
 the case that there are a number of them, which, 
 though among the most specious, are by their conse- 
 quences in mutual collision, and if no sure criterion 
 of the truth of peculiarly metaphysical (synthetical) 
 propositions is to be met with in it, then the former 
 way of judging is not admissible, but the investigation 
 of the principles of the critique must precede all judg- 
 ments as to its value. 
 
 ON A SPECIMEN OF A JUDGMENT OF THE CRITIQUE 
 PRIOR TO ITS EXAMINATION. 
 
 This judgment is to be found in the Gottingischen ge- 
 lehrten Anzeigen, in the supplement to the third divi- 
 sion, of January 19, 1782, pages 40 et seq. 
 
 When an author who is familiar with the subject 
 of his work and endeavors to present his independent 
 reflexions in its elaboration, falls into the hands of a 
 reviewer who, in his turn, is keen enough to discern 
 the points on which the worth or worthlessness of the 
 book rests, who does not cling to words, but goes to 
 the heart of the subject, sifting and testing more than 
 the mere principles which the author takes as his 
 point of departure, the severity of the judgment may 
 indeed displease the latter, but the public does not 
 care, as it gains thereby ; and the author himself may 
 be contented, as an opportunity of correcting or ex- 
 plaining his positions is afforded to him at an early 
 date by the examination of a competent judge, in 
 such a manner, that if he believes himself fundamen- 
 
150 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 tally right, he can remove in time any stone of offence 
 that might hurt the success of his work. 
 
 I find myself, with my reviewer, in quite another 
 position. He seems not to see at all the real matter 
 of the investigation with which (successfully or un- 
 successfully) I have been occupied. It is either im- 
 patience at thinking out a lengthy work, or vexation 
 at a threatened reform of a science in which he be- 
 lieved he had brought everything to perfection long 
 ago, or, what I am unwilling to imagine, real narrow- 
 mindedness, that prevents him from ever carrying his 
 thoughts beyond his school-metaphysics. In short, 
 he passes impatiently in review a long series of prop- 
 ositions, by which, without knowing their premises, 
 we can think nothing, intersperses here and there his 
 censure, the reason of which the reader understands 
 just as little as the propositions against which it is di- 
 rected ; and hence [his report] can neither serve the 
 public nor damage me, in the judgment of experts. I 
 should, for these reasons, have passed over this judg- 
 ment altogether, were it not that it may afford me oc- 
 casion for some explanations which may in some cases 
 savfe the readers of these Prolegomena from a miscon- 
 ception. 
 
 In order to take a position from which my reviewer 
 could most easily set the whole work in a most un- 
 favorable light,' without venturing to trouble hirhself 
 with any special investigation, he begins and ends by 
 saying : 
 
 "This work is a system of transcendent (or, as he 
 translates it, of higher) Idealism. "^ 
 
 IBy no means ^^higher" High towers, and metaphysically-great men 
 resembling them, round both of which there is commonly much wind, are not 
 for me. My place is the fruitful bathos^ the bottom-land, of experience ; and 
 the word transcendental, the meaning of which is so often explained by me, 
 
APPENDIX. 151 
 
 A glance at this line soon showed me the sort of 
 criticism that I had to expect, much as though the re- 
 viewer were one who had never seen or heard of geom- 
 etry, having found a Euclid, and coming upon various 
 figures in turning over its leaves, were to say, on being 
 asked his opinion of it : "The work is a text-book of 
 drawing ; the author introduces a peculiar terminol- 
 ogy, in order to give dark, incomprehensible direc- 
 tions, which in the end teach nothing more than what 
 every one can effect by a fair natural accuracy of eye, 
 etc." 
 
 Let us see, in the meantime, what sort of an ideal- 
 ism it is that goes through my whole work, although 
 it does not by a long way constitute the soul of the 
 system. 
 
 The dictum of all genuine idealists from the Eleatic 
 school to Bishop Berkeley, is contained in this for- 
 mula: "All cognition through the senses and experi- 
 ence is nothing but sheer illusion, and only, in the 
 ideas of the pure understanding and reason there is 
 truth." 
 
 The principle that throughout dominates and de- 
 termines my Idealism, is on the contrary: "All cog- 
 nition of things merely from pure understanding or 
 pure reason is nothing but sheer illusion, and only in 
 experience is there truth. " 
 
 But this is directly contrary to idealism proper. 
 
 but not once grasped by my reviewer (so carelessly bas he regarded every- 
 thing), does not signify something passing beyond all experience, but some- 
 thing that indeed precedes it a priori, but that is intended simply to make 
 cognition of experience possible. If these conceptions overstep experience, 
 their employment is termed transcendent, a word which must be distinguished 
 from transcendental, the latter being limited to the immanent use, that is, 
 to experience. All misunderstandings of this kind have been sufficiently 
 guarded against in the work itself, but my reviewer found his advantage in 
 misunderstanding me. 
 
152 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 How came I then to use this expression for quite an 
 opposite purpose, and how came my reviewer to see 
 it everywhere? 
 
 • The solution of this difficulty rests on something 
 that could have been very easily understood from the 
 general bearing of the work, if the reader had only 
 desired to do so. Space and time, together with all 
 that they contain, are not things nor qualities in them- 
 selves, but belong merely to the appearances of the 
 latter : up to this point I am one in confession with 
 the above idealists. But these, and amongst them 
 more particularly Berkeley, regarded space as a mere 
 empirical presentation that, like the phenomenon it 
 contains, is only known to us by means of experience 
 or perception, together with its determinations. I, 
 on the contrary, prove in the first place, that space 
 (and also time, which Berkeley did not consider) and 
 all its determinations a priori, can be cognised by us, 
 because, no less than time, it inheres in our sensibility 
 as a pure form before all perception or experience and 
 makes all intuition of the same, and therefore all its 
 phenomena, possible. It follows from this, that as 
 truth rests on universal and necessary laws as its cri- 
 teria, experience, according to Berkeley, can have no 
 criteria of truth, because its phenomena (according to 
 him) have nothing a priori at their foundation ; whence 
 it follows, that they are nothing but sheer illusion ; 
 whereas with us, space and time (in conjunction with 
 the pure conceptions of the understanding) prescribe 
 their law to all possible experience a priori, and at 
 the same time afford the certain criterion for distin- 
 guishing truth from illusion therein.^ 
 
 1 Idealism proper always has a mystical tendency, and can have no other, 
 but mine is solely designed for the purpose of comprehending the possibility 
 
APPENDIX. 153 
 
 My so-called (properly critical) Idealism is of quite 
 a special character, in that it subverts the ordinary 
 idealism, and that through it all cognition a priori, 
 even that of geometry, first receives objective reality, 
 which, without my demonstrated ideality of space and 
 time, could not be maintained by the most zealous 
 realists. This being the state of the case, I could 
 have wished, in order to avoid all misunderstanding, 
 to have named this conception of mine otherwise, but 
 to alter it altogether was impossible. It may be per- 
 mitted me however, in future, as has been above inti- 
 mated, to term it the formal, or better still, the crit- 
 ical Idealism, to distinguish it from the dogmatic 
 Idealism of Berkeley, and from the sceptical Idealism 
 of Descartes. 
 
 Beyond this, I find nothing further remarkable in 
 the judgment of my book. The reviewer criticises 
 here and there, makes sweeping criticisms, a mode 
 prudently chosen, since it does not betray one's own 
 knowledge or ignorance ; a single thorough criticism 
 in detail, had it touched the main question, as is only 
 fair, would have exposed, it may be my error, or it 
 may be my reviewer's measure of insight into this spe- 
 cies of research. It was, moreover, not a badly con- 
 ceived plan, in order at once to take from readers 
 (who are accustomed to form their conceptions of 
 books from newspaper reports) the desire to read the 
 book itself, to pour out in one breath a number of pas- 
 sages in succession, torn from their connexion, and 
 
 ot Qiir cognition a friori as to objects of experience, which is a problem 
 never hitherto solved or even suggested. In this way all mystical idealism 
 falls to the ground, for (as may be seen already in Plato] it inferred from our 
 cognitions a priori (even from those of geometry) another intuition different 
 from that of the senses (namely, an intellectual intuition), because it never 
 occurred to any one that the senses themselves might intuite a. priori. 
 
154 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 their grounds of proof and explanations, and which 
 must necessarily sound senseless, especially consider- 
 ing how antipathetic they are to all school-metaphys- 
 ics ; to exhaust the reader's patience ad nauseam, and 
 then, after having made me acquainted with the sen- 
 sible proposition that persistent illusion is truth, to 
 conclude with the crude paternal moralisation : to 
 what end, then, the quarrel with accepted language, 
 to what end, and whence, the idealistic distinction? 
 A judgment which seeks all that is characteristic of 
 my book, first supposed to be metaphysically hetero- 
 dox, in a mere innovation of the nomenclature, proves 
 clearly that my would-be judge has understood noth- 
 ing of the subject, and in addition, has not under- 
 stood himself.'- 
 
 My reviewer speaks like a man who is conscious 
 of important and superior insight which he keeps hid- 
 den ; for I am aware of nothing recent with respect to 
 metaphysics that could justify his tone. But he should 
 not withhold his discoveries from the world, for there 
 are doubtless many who, like myself, have not been 
 able to find in all the fine things that have for long 
 past been written in this department, anything that 
 has advanced the science by so much as a finger- 
 breadth; we find indeed the giving a new point to 
 definitions, the supplying of lame proofs with new 
 crutches, the adding to the crazy-quilt of metaphysics 
 
 iThe reviewer often fights with his own shadow. When 1 oppose the 
 truth of experience to dream, he never thinks that 1 am here speaking simply 
 of the well-lcnown somnio objective sutnto of the Wolffian philosophy, which is 
 merely formal, and with which the distinction between sleeping and waking 
 is in no way concerned, and in a transcendental philosophy indeed can have 
 no place. For the rest, he calls my deduction of the categories and table of 
 the principles of the understanding, " common well-kiiown axioms of logic 
 and ontology, expressed in an idealistic manner." The reader need only 
 consult these Prolegojnena upon this point, to convince himself that a more 
 miserable and historically incorrect, judgment, could hardly be made. 
 
APPENDIX. 155 
 
 fresh patches or changing its pattern ; but all this is 
 not what the world requires. The world is tired of 
 metaphysical assertions; it wants the possibility of 
 the science, the sources from which certainty therein 
 can be derived, and certain criteria by which it may 
 distinguish the dialectical illusion of pure reason from 
 truth. To this the critic seems to possess a key, other- 
 wise he would never have spoken out in such a high 
 tone. 
 
 But I am inclined to suspect that no such require- 
 ment of the science has ever entered his thoughts, for 
 in that case he would have directed his judgment to 
 this point, and even a mistaken attempt in such an 
 important matter, would have won his respect. If 
 that be the case, we are once more good friends. He 
 may penetrate as deeply as he likes into metaphysics, 
 without any one hindering him ; only as concerns that 
 which lies outside metaphysics, its sources, which are 
 to be found in reason, he cannot form a judgment. 
 That my suspicion is not without foundation, is proved 
 by the fact that he does not mention a word about the 
 possibility of synthetic knowledge a priori, the special 
 problem upon the solution of which the fate of meta- 
 physics wholly rests, and upon which my Critique (as 
 well as the present Prolegomena) entirely hinges. The 
 Idealism he encountered, and which he hung upon, 
 was only taken up in the doctrine as the sole means 
 of solving the above problem (although it received its 
 confirmation on other grounds), and hence he must 
 have shown either that the above problem does not 
 possess the importance I attribute to it (even in these 
 Prolegomena), or that by my conception of appear- 
 ances, it is either not solved at all, or can be better 
 solved in another way ; but I do not find a word of 
 
156 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 this in the criticism. The reviewer, then, understands 
 nothing of my work, and possibly also nothing of the 
 spirit and essential nature of metaphysics itself ; and 
 it is not, what I would rather assume, the hurry of a 
 man incensed at the labor of plodding through so 
 many obstacles, that threw an unfavorable shadow 
 over the work lying before him, and made its funda- 
 mental features unrecognisable. 
 
 There is a good deal to be done before a learned 
 journal, it matters not with what care its writers may 
 be selected, can maintain its otherwise well-merited, 
 reputation, in the field of metaphysics as elsewhere. 
 Other sciences and branches of knowledge have their 
 standard. Mathematics has it, in itself; history and 
 theology, in profane or sacred books ; natural science 
 and the art of medicine, in mathematics and experi- 
 ence ; jurisprudence, in law books ; and even matters 
 of taste in the examples of the ancients. But for the 
 judgment of the thing called metaphysics, the standard 
 has yet to be found. I have made an attempt to de- 
 termine it, as well as its use. What is to be done, 
 then, until it be found, when works of this kind have 
 to be judged of? If they are of a dogmatic character, 
 one may do what one likes ; no one will play the mas- 
 ter over others here for long, before some one else 
 appears to deal with him in the same manner. If, 
 however, they are critical in their character, not in- 
 deed with reference to other works, but to reason it- 
 self, so that the standard of judgment cannot be as- 
 sumed but has first of all to be sought for, then, though 
 objection and blame may indeed be permitted, yet a 
 certain degree of leniency is indispensable, since the 
 need is common to us all^ and the lack of the neces- 
 
APPENDIX. 157 
 
 sary insight makes the high-handed attitude of judge 
 unwarranted. 
 
 In order, however, to connect my defence with the 
 interest of the philosophical commonwealth, I pro- 
 pose a test, which must be decisive as to the mode, 
 whereby all metaphysical investigations may be di- 
 rected to their common purpose. This is nothing 
 more than what formerly mathematicians have done, 
 in establishing the advantage of their methods by 
 competition. I challenge my critic to demonstrate, 
 as is only just, on a priori grounds, in his way, a 
 single really metaphysical principle asserted by him. 
 Being metaphysical it must be synthetic and cognised 
 a priori hova. conceptions, but it may also be any one 
 of the most indispensable principles, as for instance, 
 the principle of the persistence of substance, or of the 
 necessary determination of events in the world by 
 their causes. If he cannot do this (silence however is 
 confession), he must admit, that as metaphysics with- 
 out apodeictic certainty of propositions of this kind 
 is nothing at all, its possibility or impossibility must 
 before all things be established in a critique of the 
 pure reason. Thus he is bound either to confess that 
 my principles in the Critique are correct, or he must 
 prove their invalidity. But as I can already foresee, 
 that, confidently as he has hitherto relied on the cer- 
 tainty of his principles, when it comes to a strict test 
 *he will not find a single one in the whole range of 
 metaphysics he can bring forward, I will concede to 
 him an advantageous condition, which can only be 
 expected in such a competition, and will relieve him 
 of the onus probandi by laying it on myself. 
 
 He finds in these Prolegomena and in my Critique 
 (chapter on the "Theses and Antitheses of the Four 
 
158 kant's prolegomena. 
 
 Antinomies ") eight propositions, of which two and two 
 contradict one another, but each of which necessarily 
 belongs to metaphysics, by which it must either be 
 accepted or rejected (although there is not one that 
 has not in this time been held by some philosopher). 
 Now he has the liberty of selecting any one of these 
 eight propositions at his pleasure, and accepting it 
 without any proof, of which I shall make him a pres- 
 ent, but only one (for waste of time will be just as 
 little serviceable to him as to me), and then of attack- 
 ing my proof of the opposite proposition. If I can 
 save this one, and at the same time show, that ac- 
 cording to principles which every dogmatic meta- 
 physics must necessarily recognise, the opposite of 
 the proposition adopted by him can be just as clearly 
 proved, it is thereby established that metaphysics has 
 an hereditary failing, not to be explained, much less 
 set aside, until we ascend to its birth-place, pure rea- 
 son itself, and thus my Critique must either be ac- 
 cepted or a better one take its place ; it must at least 
 be studied, which is the only thing I now require. If, 
 on the other hand, I cannot save my demonstration, 
 then a synthetic proposition a priori from dogmatic 
 principles is to be reckoned to the score of my oppo- 
 nent, then also I will deem my impeachment of ordi- 
 nary metaphysicsas unjust, and pledge myself to 
 recognise his stricture on my Critique as justified 
 (although this would not be the consequence by a 
 long way). To this end it would be necessary, it 
 seems to me, that he should step out of his incognito. 
 Otherwise I do not see how it could be avoided, that 
 instead of dealing with one, I should be honored by 
 several problems coming from anonymous and un- 
 qualified opponents. 
 
APPENDIX. 159 
 
 PROPOSALS AS TO AN INVESTIGATION OF THE CRI- 
 TIQUE UPON WHICH A JUDGMENT MAY FOLLOW. 
 
 I feel obliged to the honored public even for the 
 silence with which it for a long time favored my Cri- 
 tique, for this proves at least a postponement of judg- 
 ment, and some supposition that in a work, leaving 
 all beaten tracks and striking out on a new path, in 
 which one cannot at once perhaps so easily find one's 
 way, something may perchance lie, from which an 
 important but at present dead branch of human 
 knowledge may derive new life and productiveness. 
 Hence may have originated a solicitude for the as yet 
 tender shoot, lest it be destroyed by a hasty judg- 
 ment. A test of a judgment, delayed for the above 
 reasons, is now before my eye in the Gothaischen ge- 
 lehrten Zeitung, the thoroughness of which every 
 reader will himself perceive, from the clear and un- 
 perverted presentation of a fragment of one of the 
 first principles of my work, without taking into con- 
 sideration my own suspicious praise. 
 
 And now I propose,, since an extensive structure 
 cannot be judged of as a whole from a hurried glance, 
 to test it piece by piece from its foundations, so thereby 
 the present Prolegomena may fitly be used as a gene- 
 ral outline with which the work itself may occasionally 
 be compared. This notion, if it were founded on 
 nothing more than my conceit of importance, such as 
 vanity commonly attributes to one's own productions, 
 would be immodest and would deserve to be repudi- 
 ated with disgust. But now, the interests of specula- 
 tive philosophy have arrived at the point of total ex- 
 tinction, while human reason hangs upon them with 
 
i6o kant's prolegomena. 
 
 inextinguishable affection, and only after having been 
 ceaselessly deceived does it vainly attempt to change 
 this into indifference. 
 
 In our thinking age it is not to be supposed but 
 that many deserving men would use any good oppor- 
 tunity of working for the common interest of the more 
 and more enlightened .reason, if there were only some 
 hope of attaining the goal. Mathematics, natural 
 science, laws, arts, even morality, etc., do not com- 
 pletely fill the soul ; there is always a space left over, 
 reserved for pure and speculative reason, the vacuity 
 of which prompts us to seek in vagaries, buffooneries, 
 and myticism for what seems to be employment and 
 entertainment, but what actually is mere pastime ; in 
 order to deaden the troublesome voice of reason, 
 which in accordance with its nature requires some- 
 thing that can satisfy it, and not merely subserve 
 other ends or the interests of our inclinations. A con- 
 sideration, therefore, which is concerned only with 
 reason as it exists for it itself, has as I may reason- 
 ably suppose a great fascination for every one who 
 has attempted thus to extend his conceptions, and I 
 may even say a greater than any other theoretical 
 branch of knowledge, for which he would not willingly 
 exchange it, because here all other cognitions, and 
 even purposes, must meet and unite themselves in a 
 whole. 
 
 I offer, therefore, these Prolegomena as a sketch 
 and text-book for this investigation, and not the work 
 itself. Although I am even now perfectly satisfied 
 with the latter as far as contents, order, and mode of 
 presentation, and the care that I have expended in 
 weighing and testing every sentence before writing it 
 down, are concerned (for it has taken me years to 
 
APPENDIX. l6l 
 
 satisfy myself fully, not only as regards the whole, 
 but in some cases even as to the sources of one par- 
 ticular proposition) ; yet I am not quite satisfied with 
 my exposition in some sections of the doctrine of ele- 
 ments, as for instance in the deduction of the concep- 
 tions of the Understanding, or in that on the paral- 
 ogisms of pure reason, hecaupe a certain diffuseness 
 takes away from their clearness, and in place of them, 
 what is here said in the Prolegomena respecting these 
 sections, may be made the basis of the test. 
 
 It is the boast of the Germans that where steady 
 and continuous industry are requisite, they can carry 
 things farther than other nations. If this opinion be 
 well founded, an opportunity, a business, presents it- 
 self, the successful issue of which we can scarcely 
 doubt, and in which all thinking men can equally 
 take part, though they have hitherto been unsuccess- 
 ful in accomplishing it and in thus confirming the 
 above good opinion. But this is chiefly because the 
 science in question is of so peculiar a kind, that it 
 can be at once brought to completion and to that en- 
 during state that it will never be able to be brought 
 in the least degree farther or increased by later dis- 
 coveries, or even changed (leaving here out of account 
 adornment by greater clearness in some places, or 
 additional uses), and this is an advantage no other 
 science has or can have, because there is none so fully 
 isolated and independent of others, and which is con- 
 cerned with the faculty of cognition pure and simple. 
 And the present moment seems, moreover, not to be 
 unfavorable to my expectation, for just now, in Ger- 
 many, no one seems to know wherewith to occupy 
 himself, apart from the so-called useful sciences, so 
 
i62 rant's prolegomena. 
 
 as to pursue not mere play, but a business possessing 
 an enduring purpose. 
 
 To discover the means how the endeavors of the 
 learned may be united in such a purpose, I must leave 
 to others. In the meantime, it is my intention to per- 
 suade any one merely to follow my propositions, or 
 even to flatter me with the hope that he will do so ; 
 but attacks, repetitions, limitations, or coniirmation, 
 completion, and extension, as the case may be, should 
 be appended. If the matter be but investigated from 
 its foundation, it cannot fail that a system, albeit not 
 my own, shall be erected, that shall be a possession 
 for future generations for which they may have reason 
 to be grateful. 
 
 It would lead us too far here to show what kind of 
 metaphysics may be expected, when only the princi- 
 ples of criticism have been perfected, and how, be-^ 
 cause the old false feathers have been pulled out, she 
 need by no means appear poor and reduced to an in- 
 significant figure, but may be in other respects richly 
 and respectably adorned. But other and great uses 
 which would result from such a reform, strike one im- 
 mediately. The ordinary metaphysics had its uses, 
 in that it sought out the elementary conceptions of 
 the pure understanding in order to make them clear 
 through analysis, and definite by explanation. In this 
 way it was a training for reason, in whatever direction 
 it might be turned ; but this was all the good it did ; 
 service was subsequently effaced when it favored con- 
 ceit by venturesome assertions, sophistry by subtle 
 distinctions and adornment, and shallowness by the 
 ease with which it decided the most difficult problems 
 by means of a little school-wisdom, which is only the 
 more seductive the more it has the choice, on the one 
 
APPENDIX. 163 
 
 hand, of taking something from the language of sci- 
 ence, and on the other from that of popular discourse, 
 thus being everything to everybody, but in reality 
 nothing at all. By criticism, however, a standard is 
 given to our judgment, whereby knowledge may be 
 with certainty distinguished from pseudo-science, and 
 firmly founded, being brought into full operation in 
 metaphysics ; a mode of thought extending by degrees 
 its beneficial influence over every other use of reason, 
 at once infusing into it the true philosophical spirit. 
 But the service also that metaphysics performs for 
 theology, by making it independent of the judgment 
 of dogmatic speculation, thereby assuring it com- 
 pletely against the attacks of all such opponents, is 
 certainly not to be valued lightly. For ordinary meta- 
 physics, although it promised the latter much advan- 
 tage, could not keep this promise, and moreover, by 
 summoning speculative dogmatics to its assistance, 
 did nothing but arm enemies against itself. Mysti- 
 cism, which can prosper in a rationalistic age only 
 when it hides itself behind a system of school-meta- 
 physics, under the protection of which it may venture 
 to rave with a semblance of rationality, is driven from 
 this, its last hiding-place, by critical philosophy. Last, 
 but not least, it cannot be otherwise than important 
 to a teacher of metaphysics, to be able to say with 
 universal assent, that what he expounds is Science, 
 and that thereby genuine services will be rendered to 
 the commonweal. 
 
KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 By dr. PAUL CARUS. 
 
KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY is frequently regarded as idle ver- 
 biage ; and the great mass of the average produc- 
 tions of this branch of human endeavor would seem 
 to justify the statement. Nevertheless, philosophy 
 has exercised a paramount influence upon the history 
 of mankind, for philosophy is the quintessence of 
 man's conception of the world and the view he takes 
 of the significance of life. While philosophical books, 
 essays, lectures, and lessons may be intricate and long- 
 winded, there is at the core of all the questions under 
 discussion a public interest of a practical nature. The 
 problems that have reference to it are, as a rule, much 
 simpler and of more common application than is ap- 
 parent to an outsider, and all of them closely consid- 
 ered will be found to be of a religious nature. 
 
 KANT'S SIGNIFICANCE IN THE HISTORY OF 
 PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 When we try to trace the erratic lines of the his- 
 tory of philosophy, the advance seems slow, but the 
 results, meagre though they sometimes may be, can 
 be summarised in brief statements. Thus the sophistic 
 movement in Greece in contradistinction to the old 
 najlve naturalists, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaxi- 
 menes, is characterised by the maxim : itavTav lUrpav 
 avOpanroi, [Man is the measure of all things], which is 
 the simple solution of a series of intricate problems. 
 
i68 rant's philosophy. 
 
 In spite of its truth, it was misused by unscrupulous 
 rhetoricians, who disgraced the profession of sophists 
 and degraded the noble name of their science, called 
 Sophia, i. e., wisdom, to such an extent that the term 
 ' ' sophist " became an epithet of opprobrium. Socrates 
 opposed the sophists, but in all theoretical points he 
 was one of them. There was only this difference, 
 that he insisted on the moral nature of man and thus 
 became the noblest exponent of the sophistic prin- 
 ciple. It indicates a new departure that he changed 
 the name sophia to philosophia ot philosophy, i. e., love 
 of wisdom, which was universally accepted as more 
 modest and better becoming to the teachers and spir- 
 itual guides of mankind. While he granted that man 
 is the measure of all things, he pointed out the duty 
 of investigating the nature ot man, and he selected 
 the Delphic maxim : yvfifli o-towov, "know thyself," as 
 a motto for his life. It would lead us too far to show 
 how Plato worked out the Socratic problem of the hu- 
 man soul, which led him to a recognition of the sig- 
 nificance of forms, as expressed in his doctrine of 
 ideas, and how Aristotle applied it to natural science. 
 The Neo-Platonists developed Plato's mystical and 
 supernatural tendencies and prepared thereby for the 
 rise of a dualistic religion. 
 
 When Christianity became a dominating power in 
 the world, philosophy disappeared for a while, being 
 replaced by the belief in a divine revelation as the 
 sole source of all wisdom; but in the Middle Ages 
 philosophy was revived as scholasticism, the impulse 
 to the movement being due to the revival of Aristote- 
 lianism, through an acquaintance with the writings of 
 cultured Arabian sages. 
 
 In the era of scholasticism we have two authori- 
 
kant's philosophy. 169 
 
 ties, Revelation and Science, the former conceived to 
 be identical with the verdicts of the Church, the latter 
 being a blind acceptance of a second-hand and much 
 distorted knowledge of the philosopher's works. The 
 Platonic problem of the eternal types of things was 
 revived, and Nominalists and Realists contended with 
 one another on the question of the reality of ideas. In 
 their methods, however, these two conflicting schools 
 were on the same level, for both were in the habit of 
 appealing to certain authorities. With them proof 
 consisted in quotations either of church doctrines or 
 of passages from Aristotle. There was no genuine 
 science, no true philosophy, the efforts of the age 
 consisting in vain attempts at reconciling the two 
 conflicting sources of their opinions. 
 
 Modern philosophy is a product of the awakening 
 spirit of science, beginning with Descartes who pro- 
 posed to introduce method into philosophy, as ex- 
 pressed in his Discourse on Method. He abolished the 
 implicit belief in book authority. Falling back upon 
 the facts of life, he bethought himself of the signifi- 
 cance of Man's thinking faculty, and so, starting again 
 from the subjective position of the sophists, he defined 
 his solution of the basic problem with great terseness 
 in the sentence : Cogito ergo sum, [I think, therefore 
 I am]. 
 
 The latest phase in philosophy begins with Kant, 
 and it is his immortal merit to have gone to the bot- 
 tom of the philosophical problem by reducing its diffi- 
 culties to a system. In the Cartesian syllogism he 
 saw a fallacy if it was interpreted to mean "Cogito 
 ergo ego sum." 
 
 The subject ego, implied in "sum," is implicitly 
 contained in "cogito," and thus if the sentence is 
 
170 KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 meant to prove the existence of a metaphysical ego, 
 the argument is a fallacy, being merely a deduction 
 derived from the assumption that the ego does the 
 thinking. 
 
 In spite of its syllogistic form the sentence was 
 not meant as a syllogism but as a statement of fact. 
 Kant's objection, however, holds good in either case, 
 for though the thinking be a fact, it is an assumption 
 to take for granted that the thinker is an ego, i. e., a 
 soul-entity that exists independently of its thinking. 
 Lichtenberg therefore said that we ought to replace 
 the sentence "/ think" by "// thinks." Yet even if 
 we allow the statement ^^ I think" to pass, the ques- 
 tion arises: What do we understand by "/"? Is it a 
 collective term for all the thought-processes that take 
 place in one and the same personality, or is there a 
 separate soul-being which does the thinking and con- 
 stitutes the personality? In other words, the exist- 
 ence of the thinking subject, called the /, does not 
 imply that it is a spiritual thing in itself, nor even 
 that it constitutes a unity. 
 
 Mystic tendencies of a religious nature such as 
 found a classical exposition in Kant's contemporary 
 and namesake, Emanuel Swedenborg, rendered some 
 of the problems of philosophy more complicated by 
 laying special stress upon the difference between mat- 
 ter and spirit, and discussing the possibility and prob- 
 able nature of purely spiritual beings ; but all philoso- 
 phising on the subject consisted in declamations and 
 unproved propositions. 
 
 Wolf, a clear-headed thinker, though void of origi- 
 nality, reduced the metaphysical notions from Aris- 
 totle down to the eighteenth century into an elaborate 
 
rant's philosophy. 171 
 
 system, and thus became to Kant the typical exponent 
 of dogmatism. 
 
 In contrast to the metaphysical school, the sen- 
 sualists had risen. They are best represented by 
 Locke who denied the existence of innate ideas (ex- 
 cept the idea of causation) and tried to prove that all 
 abstract thought had its origin in sensation. Hume, 
 taking offence even at the claims of causation as a 
 necessary connexion, declared that, accustomed to 
 the invariable sequence of cause and effect, we mis- 
 take our subjective necessity of thinking them to- 
 gether for an objective necessity, which remains un- 
 proved. Thus he turned skeptic and gave by his 
 doubts regarding the objective validity of causation 
 .as a universal principle and a metaphysical truth the 
 suggestion to Kant to investigate the claims of all 
 metaphysics, of which the notion of causality is only 
 a part. 
 
 Here Kant's philosophical reform set in, which 
 consists in rejecting both the skepticism of Hume and 
 the dogmatism of Wolf and in offering a new solution 
 which he called criticism. 
 
 Kant took the next step in seeking for the prin- 
 ciple that determined all thinking, and discovered it 
 in the purely formal laws of thought, which in their 
 complete unity constitute pure reason. The investi- 
 gation of the conditions of thought, he called "criti- 
 cism." He insisted that the dogmatical declamations 
 of all the various systems of metaphysics were idle 
 and useless talk. He said they were vain attempts at 
 building a mighty tower that would reach to Heaven. 
 But at the same time he claimed to prove that the 
 supply of building materials was after all sufficient for 
 
172 rant's philosophy. 
 
 a dwelling-house spacious enough for the needs of life 
 and high enough to survey the field of experience. ^ 
 
 In place of the old metaphysics which used to de- 
 rive from pure concepts a considerable amount of 
 pretended knowledge concerning God, the world, and 
 man, concerning substance, as the substratum of ex- 
 istence, the soul, the future state of things, and im- 
 mortality, Kant drew up an inventory of the posses- 
 sions of Pure Reason and came to the conclusion that 
 all knowledge of purely formal thought is in itself 
 empty and that sense-experience in itself is blind ; the 
 two combined form the warp and woof of experience, 
 which alone can afford positive information concern- 
 ing the nature of objects. Empirical knowledge of 
 the senses furnishes the material, while formal thought 
 supplies the method by which perceptions can be or- 
 ganised and systematised into knowledge. Kant's aim 
 was not to produce glittering generalities, but to offer 
 critique, that is to say, a method of, and norm for, 
 scientific thought ; and he said, conscious of the sig- 
 nificance of his philosophy : 
 
 ' ' This much is certain, that whoever has once tasted critique 
 will be ever after disgusted with all dogmatical twaddle." 
 
 Dogmatism in metaphysics is the dragon which 
 Kant slew. But Kant's criticism was not purely nega- 
 tive. He recognised in the world as an undeniable 
 fact the demand of the moral "ought" which he called 
 "the categorical imperative," and while he insisted 
 upon the determinism of natural law he would not 
 deny the freedom of the will establishing it upon 
 
 1 See Critique of Pure Reason in the chapter "Transcendental Doctrine of 
 Method," Max Miiller's translation, p. 567, Meicklejohn's, p. 431, original 
 edition, p. 707. 
 
rant's philosophy. 173 
 
 man's moral responsibility. He declared : "I shall, 
 therefore I can." 
 
 PERSONAL TRAITS. 
 
 Kant, the son of simple but rigorously pious parents 
 of Scotch extraction, lived at Konigsberg in Prus- 
 sia under the rule of Frederick the Great. ^ His moral 
 sense was stern and unalloyed with sentimentality. 
 He never married, and his relation to his relatives 
 was regulated strictly according to his views of duty.' 
 In his philosophy as well as in his private life he was 
 duty incarnate. While he had imbibed the sense of 
 duty that characterises the system of education in 
 Prussia, he was also swayed by the ideals of liberty 
 and fraternity so vigorously brought to the front by 
 the French revolution.^ His influence on the German 
 nation, on science, religion, and even politics cannot 
 be underrated, although his ideas did not reach the 
 people directly in the form he uttered them, but only 
 indirectly through his disciples, the preachers, teach- 
 ers, and poets of the age. His main works which em- 
 body the gist of his peculiar doctrines are the Critique 
 of Pure Reason, the Critique of Practical Reason, and 
 the Critique of Judgment. Among them the Critique 
 
 IFor a good condensed statement of Kant's life see page 245 of this vol- 
 ume, where Professor Windelband's account is reproduced. For a convenient 
 chronological table of the data of Kant's life and publications see pages 287- 
 2gi of the present volume. 
 
 2We have had reproduced at p. 285 of this volume a specimen of Kant's 
 handwriting, a letter of his to his brother, plainly characterising his business- 
 like conception of duty which regulated his life with machine-like preci- 
 sion. 
 
 SHeinrich Heine described Kant to the French most drastically in an 
 essay on German philosophy, of which an English translation has been re- 
 printed in this volume at page 264, 
 
174 
 
 KANX'S PHILOSOPHY. 
 
kant's philosophy. 175 
 
 of Pure Reason is by far the most important one.^ It 
 is a pity that the Critique of Pure Reason, from the 
 appearance of which the historian dates the beginning 
 of the latest period in the evolution of philosophy, is 
 a ponderous and almost unintelligible work, — a book 
 with seven seals to the average reader ; and it might 
 have remained ineffectual had not Kant been necessi- 
 tated to rectify this defect by giving to the public a 
 popular explanation concerning his intentions. 
 
 The Critique of Pure Reason was published in 1781. 
 In the Gottingenschen Gelehrten Anzeigen of January 
 19, 1782, there appeared a review of the book, written 
 by Garve and modified by Feder, which irritated Kant 
 considerably, because the review treated his criticism 
 as a revival of Berkeley's idealism, which was com- 
 monly regarded as pure subjectivism. ^ There is no 
 need here of protesting in Berkeley's name against 
 this interpretation of his philosophy, for we are con- 
 cerned here with Kant, not with Berkeley. But even 
 Kant misunderstood Berkeley,^ and for our present 
 
 1 A splendid analysis of the three Critiques is given by Prof. A, Weber in 
 
 his History 0/ Pkiloso^hy,tx3i.ns\3.ied from the fifth French edition by Prof. 
 Frank Tilly, pp. 436-472, We have reprinted part of this analysis at p. 250. 
 
 The compilation of Kant's ipihiloso-phy in a. ICantlexikon by Gustav Wegner 
 (Berlin, 1893) is not very serviceable. The book is unhandy and lacks the 
 main requisite of a lexicon, a good index. 
 
 The exposition of Kant's philosophy by G. H. Lewes in his Biographical 
 History <^ Philosophy is an excellent sketch and worth a careful perusal. But 
 Lewes leaves the problem where Kant left it, saying : "There is, in truth, no 
 necessity in causation, except the necessity of our belief in it,' ' But whence 
 does this necessity come, and what is its authority ? 
 
 SGarve's letter to Kant and Kant's answer contain the whole material of 
 the history of this garbled review. They are interesting reading but mainly 
 of a personal nature, consisting of explanations, excuses, and polite words. 
 For 3t reproduction of this correspondence see Reclam's text edition of Kant's 
 Prolegomena^ Appendix, pp. 2x4-230. 
 
 S For a condensed statement of Berkeley's idealism see Thomas J. Mc- 
 Cormack's preface to Berkeley's Treatise Concerning the Principles i^ Human 
 Knowledge^ Chicago, The Open Court Pub. Co,, xgoz, especially pp. xii-siv« 
 
176 kant's philosophy. 
 
 purpose it is sufficient to say that Berkeley's idealism 
 meant to Kant and his contemporaries pure subjec- 
 tivism. 
 
 Kant was irritated because his philosophy was dis- 
 
 posed of as an old error, a method which (as Paulsen 
 says) has been developed into a regular system among 
 a certain class of Roman Catholic critics who regard 
 the possibilities of philosophising as exhausted in the 
 
rant's philosophy. 177 
 
 history of philosophy. Claiming to be in possession 
 of the whole truth, they are naturally disinclined to 
 believe that new truths can be brought to light. Thus 
 they have developed the habit of associating every 
 new idea with some one of the systems of the past 
 which to them are nothing but a catalogus errorum, 
 and serve them as so many coffins in which to bury 
 any doctrine that does not receive their approbation. 
 
 Kant's indignation was perhaps exaggerated, for 
 he ought to have considered the difficulty of under- 
 standing a doctrine that was at the same time utterly 
 new and presented in a most unattractive, pedantical 
 form ; but the result was happy, for he felt urged to 
 write a popular explanation of his work, to offset 
 Garve's misconception, which would serve the reader 
 as Prolegomena, i. e , as prefatory remarks to the Cri- 
 tique of Pure Reason. 
 
 These Prolegomena insist on the newness of Kant's 
 proposition and emphasise his adhesion to realism (or 
 the doctrine that the objective world is actual) in con- 
 trast to the subjectivism of Berkeley, or what was sup- 
 posed to be Berkeley. At the same time they possess 
 the charm of wonderful vigor and directness. Here 
 Kant does not write in the pedantic, dignified style 
 of a professor, but with the boldness of a resentful 
 author who, conscious of his title to careful considera- 
 tion and believing himself to be wrongly criticised, is 
 anxious to be properly understood by the public. 
 
 While the Critique of Pure Reason is synthetic, the 
 Prolegomena are (as says Kant himself) analytic. In 
 the Critique of Pure Reason Kant discourses as one 
 who speaks ex cathedra, sitting in the professorial 
 chair ; he propounds his doctrine deductively, and I 
 
 1 See Friedrich Paulsen's Kant, p. Z29, 
 
178 kant's philosophy. 
 
 for one can very well understand that his expositions 
 appear to an uninitiated reader bewilderingly orac- 
 ular. In the Prolegomena his stj'le is not stilted but 
 rather careless and though his periods are long they 
 are fluent and easily understood. 
 
 KANT'S TERMS. 
 
 The main difficulty of understanding Kant, to later 
 generations, and also to foreigners not to the manner 
 born as regards the German vernacular, lies in his 
 terminology. Simple though his terms are when once 
 understood, they afford unsurmountable difficulties to 
 those who are not familiar with their significance. 
 
 Familiarity with the following terms is indispen- 
 sable for a comprehension of Kant: "metaphysics"; 
 "understanding" and "reason"; "empirical" and 
 "experience"; "noumenon" and "phenomenon"; 
 a priori z.-aA a posteriori ; " transcendental " and "tran- 
 scendent"; and "intuition" ox Anschauung. 
 
 First, above all, there is the term "metaphysics," 
 which is the science of first principles. Aristotle, who 
 discusses the subject of dpx(i'> or first principles, in 
 books placed after the physical treatises (hence the 
 name to, ^era ra. ^vo-iko, sc. ^iPXia, corrupted into meta- 
 physics), calls it First Philosophy, i. e., the Essence 
 or basis of Philosophy, and identifies it with Theol- 
 ogy, because he finds in God the ultimate raison d'etre 
 of all metaphysical concepts such as being and be- 
 coming, space and time, multiplicity and unity, things 
 and the world, cause and effect, substance and qual- 
 ity, God and soul and immortality. 
 
 Kant defines metaphysics as : 
 
 "A system of all the principles of pure theo- 
 retical reason-cognition {^Vernunfterkenniniss) in 
 
kant's philosophy. 179 
 
 concepts, — briefly the system of pure theoretical 
 philosophy. " ' 
 
 In another place Kant (IV., p. 236) speaks of 
 metaphysics simply as "pure philosophy limited to 
 the objects of the understanding," a definition which 
 almost identifies it with Logic. ^ He insists that meta- 
 physics is based upon man's faculty of thinking and 
 not pure imagination. Being a priori, it deals with 
 the acts of pure thought, which reduce the manifold 
 sense-impressions to unity bylaw. (Vol. IV., p. 362.) 
 
 The sources of metaphysics are limited by Kant 
 to the a priori (Vol. IV., p. 13); its possibility stands 
 and falls with the possibility of synthetical judgments 
 a priori (Vol. IV., p. 14); pre-Kantian metaphysics 
 is declared to be uncritical and unscientific (IV., p. 
 23); as a science metaphysics must be a systematic 
 presentation of all a priori concepts, including above 
 all the synthetical propositions of man's philosophical 
 cognition; and its final purpose (IV., p. 19) consists 
 in the cognition of the Supreme Being as well as of 
 the life to come {die zukUnftige WeW). The latter 
 expression had perhaps better be replaced by the 
 broader idea of the mundus intelligibilis, the intelligible 
 world, constituting the purely formal in contrast to 
 the material, the Platonic ideas or types of things as 
 distinguished from their accidental relations in space 
 and time, exhibiting the abiding in the transcient and 
 thus making it possible to view the world (as Spinoza 
 has it) under the aspect of eternity, — sub specie ceterni. 
 
 Kant started a new line of investigation and kept 
 in view his main aim. . So it was natural that he did 
 
 lEd. Hartenstein, Vol. VIH., p. 52i. 
 
 2 Logic is defined by Kant (IV., p. 236) as " the pure philosophy which is 
 purely formal." 
 
i8o rant's philosophy. 
 
 not feel the need of certain discriminations before his 
 work was pretty well advanced. This accounts for a 
 few inaccuracies in the use of his terminology, cover- 
 ing the terms "understanding," "reason," and "ex- 
 perience." He distinguishes in his Prolegomena be- 
 tween reason and understanding, but the discrimination 
 is by no means thoroughly carried out. The under- 
 standing is defined as the use of the categories, and 
 reason the faculty of forming ideas. The understand- 
 ing accordingly represents the logical functions, and 
 reason the domain of abstractions and generalisations. 
 The understanding draws conclusions and attends to 
 the machinery of thinking, reason seeks oneness in 
 plurality, aims at a systematical comprehension of 
 things apparently different and establishes laws to ex- 
 plain the variety of phenomena by one common rule. 
 
 By "empirical" Kant understood all those judg- 
 ments that contain sensory elements. They were either 
 mere perceptions, i. e., a taking cognisance of sense- 
 impressions, or experience, i. e., the product of 
 thought and perceptions, resulting in empirical state- 
 ments that are universally valid, ^ 
 
 The contrast of perceptions, as the sense-woven 
 pictures of things, and ideas or the mind-begotten 
 concepts of them, is expressed in the two terms 
 "phenomenon" or appearance, and "noumenon" or 
 thought. Kant translates the former by the word Sin- 
 neswesen, i. e., creature of the senses, and the latter 
 by the word Gedankenwesen, i. e., creature of thought.' 
 
 1 That Kant's use of the term " experience " was not always consistent I 
 have endeavored to explain elsewhere. See Primer of Philosophy, pp. 30 ff. 
 
 2 Pronounce no-oomenon, not noomenon. The original Greek reads yooi!- 
 Iievov. Theou in the German transcription, **No-ume7ion^' was misinterpreted 
 as a French ou: hence the erroneous pronunciation of some English lexicog- 
 raphers as ''noomenon." 
 
rant's philosophy. i8i 
 
 Noumenon should not mean "thing in itself," as 
 which it is actually used by Kant contrary to his own 
 definition, but man's subjective conception of the 
 thing in itself. If the phenomenon is subjective ap- 
 pearance, the noumenon, far from being objective, 
 is, according to Kant, still more subjective, being a 
 mere subjective digest of the materials furnished by 
 the subjective phenomenon. The term "noumenon," 
 however,is not limited to its original meaning. Kant 
 understands by it, not oply the subjective concept of 
 things, but also the objective "thing in itself." 
 
 The terms a priori zxiA a posteriori are of special 
 significance. They mean "before" and "afterwards," 
 but we must bear in mind that they should be under- 
 stood, not as a temporal succession, but in a logical 
 sense. A priori cognitions are the principles which 
 the naturalist uses in his investigations ; but his in- 
 vestigations themselves, consisting of sense-experi- 
 ence, are a posteriori. Before he begins his investiga- 
 tion, the naturalist must know that 2X2^4, that there 
 can be no effect without a cause, that he can rely on 
 the rule of three and on the syllogisms of logic. The 
 knowledge of these truths is the condition of science, 
 and all these truths are universal, i. e., they apply to 
 all possible cases. A priori knowledge has developed 
 through the practice of sense-experience. Indeed, 
 sense-experience came first in temporal order ; but 
 sense-impressions would forever remain a mass of iso- 
 lated things were they not systematised with the as- 
 sistance of a priori principles. 
 
 A priori does not mean innate, for neither mathe- 
 matics, nor arithmetic, nor logic is innate; but the 
 theorems of these sciences can be deduced in our 
 thoughts without calling upon sense-experience to aid 
 
1 82 rant's philosophy. 
 
 us. Innate ideas would mean inherited notions, like 
 the instincts of animals. The characteristic feature 
 of a priori conceptions is not that we know them well 
 nor that we find them ready-made in our minds, but 
 that they have a universal application and are there- 
 fore necessary truths. 
 
 The contrast between a priori and a posteriori 
 truths is easily explained when we consider that the 
 former are purely formal, the latter sensory. The for- 
 mer therefore cannot give us any information concern- 
 ing the substance, the matter, the thingish nature of 
 things (as Kant expresses it, "they are empty"), but 
 they can be used for determining the relations and 
 forms of things, and this renders them uniquely valu- 
 able, for science is nothing but a tracing of the changes 
 of form, an application of the laws of form, a measur- 
 ing, a weighing, a counting ; and their paramount im- 
 portance appears in this that our knowledge of the 
 laws of form will in consideration of their universal 
 validity, result in the possibility of predetermining 
 future modifications under given conditions. 
 
 There, are two synonyms of a priori, the word 
 "pure" and the term "transcendental." 
 
 Reason unalloyed with notions derived from sense- 
 experience, and therefore limited to conceptions a pri- 
 ori, is called pure reason. "Transcendental" means 
 practically the same as pure and a priori. By tran- 
 scendental discourses Kant understands those which 
 transcend experience and consider its a priori condi- 
 tions. Thus, transcendental logic is pure logic in so 
 far as pure logic is the condition of applied logic. 
 Transcendental psychology is the doubtful domain of 
 abstract notions concerning the unity of the ego, its 
 substantiahty and permanence, etc. Transcendental 
 
KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. I83 
 
 cosmology consists of the ideas of existence in gene- 
 ral and the universe in particular. Then the questions 
 arise as to the world's infinitude or limitedness, its 
 eternity or beginning and end. Further, whether or 
 not causality is absolute, viz., is there contingency 
 only, or is an uncaused will possible? Here the oracle 
 of pure reason fails and Kant formulates the result in 
 his strange doctrine of contradictions, or, as he calls 
 it, antinomies of pure reason. 
 
 Transcendental cosmology, transcendental psy- 
 chology, transcendental theology, are not sciences, 
 but the dreams of metaphysics. As such they tran- 
 scend experience to the extent of becoming hazy. 
 They cease to be accessible to comprehension and are 
 then in Kant's terminology called "transcendent." 
 
 Mark the difference between the two terms : the 
 word "transcendental" denotes the subjective condi- 
 tions of all experience, consisting in the recognition 
 of such truisms as logical, arithmetical, and geometri- 
 cal theorems, which are the clearest, most indisput- 
 able, and most unequivocal notions we have. Tran- 
 scendent, however, means that which lies beyond the 
 ken of all possible knowledge within the nebulous do- 
 main in which we can as well affirm as deny the pos- 
 sibility of assumptions. Consider at the same time 
 that in the English language "transcendental" is a 
 synonym of "transcendent," and the difference made 
 by Kant has been slurred over by many of his exposi- 
 tors. What a heap of confusion resulted from this 
 carelessness ! We need not wonder that his radical 
 system of transcendental criticism was transformed 
 into that uncritical metaphysicism, or dabbling in un- 
 warranted transcendental notions which Kant so vig- 
 orously and effectually combated. 
 
184 rant's philosophy. 
 
 The confusion which English interpreters produced 
 by their neglect of distinguishing between "transcen- 
 dent" and "transcendental" was increased by their 
 misconception of the term Anschauung, which, being 
 properly but not adequately translated by its Latin 
 equivalent "intuition," became tinged with all the 
 mysticism and metaphysicism of intuitionalism. "In- 
 tuition," according to the commonly accepted use of 
 the word, means in the English as well as in German 
 "the power of the mind by which it immediately per- 
 ceives the truth of things without reasoning or analy- 
 sis." As such intuitions signify not only the images 
 of sense-perception, but also, and indeed mainly, ec- 
 static visions in which the soul is face to face with 
 presences spiritual, supernal, or divine; and thus it 
 happened that under the guarantee of Kant's criticism 
 the most extravagant speculations could gain admis- 
 sion to the philosophical world as genuine philosoph- 
 ical ideas. 
 
 Anschauung, like the Latin intuitio, signifies the 
 act of looking at an object ; it denotes the sensation of 
 sight. However, its use is not restricted to sight, but 
 extends to all sense-perception. The peculiar feature 
 of sense-perception consists in its directness and im- 
 mediate appearance in our organs of sense as sensa- 
 tion. When we look at a tree we do not argue ; we 
 simply see the tree. We need not know anything 
 about the physical processes that take place both 
 outside in the domain of ether-waves which are re- 
 flected on the sighted object, and within our eye 
 where the lens produces an image that is thrown upon 
 the surface of the retina, in the same way in which 
 the photographer's camera produces a picture on the 
 sensitive plate. The picture seen is the result of the 
 
kant's philosophy. 185 
 
 process, and all epistemological considerations are 
 after-thoughts. The same is true of all sensations. 
 Sensations, though the result of complicated pro- 
 cesses, are given facts ; they are the data of experi- 
 ence and there is no argument in them, no reasoning, 
 no deliberation, no hesitation, as to their truth ; they 
 are the realities of life, and from them we construct 
 our notions of the world in which we live. 
 
 It is a pity that we have not a Saxon equivalent 
 for the German Anschauung. We might coin the word 
 "atsight," which (in contrast to insight) would de- 
 note the act of perceiving a sighted object ; but the 
 word, in order to make the same impression, ought 
 to be current, which the term atsight is not. The 
 translation "intuition" is admissible only on the con- 
 dition that we exclude from it all mystical notions of 
 subjective visions and define it as visualised percep- 
 tion. There are passages where Anschauung is an ex- 
 act synonym for "sense-experience" or "perception," 
 and we might translate it thus were it not for the ex- 
 tended use Kant makes of the term by speaking of 
 reine Anschauung, meaning thereby the pure forms of 
 sense-experience which are as much immediate data 
 of perception as are the sense-elements of sensation. 
 
 If we had to recast the exposition of Kant's phi- 
 losophy we could avoid the term "pure intuition" 
 and replace it by the pure forms of sense-experience, 
 but if we would render Kant in his own words we can- 
 not do so. The translator must reproduce Kant in 
 his own language, and thus must either invent a new 
 word such as atsight, or must cling to the traditional 
 term intuition?- 
 
 1 Mr. Kroeger's proposition, made in the Journal of Speculative Philos- 
 ophy, 11., p. igi, to translate Anschauung by contemplation seems inadmis- 
 
186 KANT'S PHILOSOPHY". 
 
 KANT'S IDEALISM. 
 
 The contrasts in Kant's terminology, a priori and 
 a posteriori, formal and material, pure reason and ex- 
 perience, etc., do not yet imply the conclusion at 
 which he arrives, the main result being the ideality of 
 space and time and of all pure forms of thought. 
 Kant was led to it by a strange fallacy, the error of 
 which we intend to trace in the subsequent pages. 
 
 First let us try to understand the point of view 
 which Kant took. 
 
 The pure form of our sense-perception is the rela- 
 tional in the domain of sensory elements, viz., their 
 juxtaposition, or space, and their succession, or time, 
 their shape, their causal intercatenation, etc. 
 
 In his discourse on the pure forms of sense-per- 
 ception (called "Transcendental .^Esthetics"), Kant 
 points out first of space, then of time, that they are 
 notions which are : 
 
 1. Insuppressible (viz., we can think or assume in 
 thought the non-existence of all objects, but not of 
 space or time). 
 
 2. Necessary a priori (viz., they are of universal 
 application' and transcendental, i. e., the condition of 
 all sense-perceptions.) 
 
 3. Unique (viz., there is but one space and one 
 time ; all spaces, so called, are parts only of, or rooms 
 in, that one space ; and different times are periods of 
 that one time). 
 
 4. Infinite (viz., all concrete objects are finite; 
 
 sible. Compare for further details of the use of the word the author's pam- 
 phlet Kant and Spemer^ pp. 76 ff. In the present translation of Kant's 
 Frolegomsna we have rendered it a few times by sense-perception and msuali- 
 sation, but mostly by intuitwn, and have (wherever it is not translated by 
 "intuition ") alway added in parenthesis the German original. 
 
KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 87 
 
 but time and space, not being concrete entities, are 
 limitless). 
 
 He concludes that space and time are not proper- 
 ties of objects as things-in-themselves, but the forms 
 of their phenomenal existence. 
 
 It is obviously a mistake to regard space and time 
 as concrete objects. Infinite objects would be mon- 
 ster-existences the reality of which cannot but pass 
 our comprehension. They are the forms of things, 
 indispensable not only for their existence in general 
 but also for determining their several individual and 
 characteristic types; for that which constitutes the 
 difference of things, so far as science has been able to 
 penetrate into the mysteries of being, is always due 
 to a difference of form. Kant guardedly grants em- 
 pirical reality to space and time ; he ascribes space 
 and time to things as phenomena, and denies only 
 their being properties of things as things-in-them- 
 selves. But he adds the explicit statement that space 
 as well as time are "the subjective conditions of the 
 sensibility under which alone external intuition {An- 
 schauung, i. e., sense-perception) becomes possible." 
 Thus, Kant concludes space and time are a priori in- 
 tuitions ; they do not belong to the external domain 
 of reality or objectivity, but to the sphere of subjec- 
 tivity ; and being forms of the sensibility of the in- 
 tuitive mind they are (says Kant) ideal. 
 
 Kant does not deny the reality of things, but hav- 
 ing established the ideality of space and time he be- 
 lieves that, 
 
 " If we regarded space and time as properties which must be 
 found in objects as things-in-themselves, as sine quibus non of 
 the possibility of their existence, and reflect on the absurdities in 
 which we then find ourr-slves involved, inasmuch as we are com- 
 
i88 kant's philosophy. 
 
 pelled to admit the existence of two infinite things, which are 
 nevertheless not substances, nor anything really inhering in sub- 
 stances, nay, to admit that they are the necessary conditions of the 
 existence of all things, and moreover, that they must continue to 
 exist, although all existing things were annihilated, — we cannot 
 blame the good Berkeley tor degrading bodies to mere illusory ap- 
 pearances. Nay, even our own existence which would in this case 
 depend upon the self-existent reality of such a mere nonentity as 
 time, would necessarily be changed with it into mere appearance — 
 an absurdity which no one has as yet been guilty of." ' 
 
 Thus, Kant believes that if space and time were 
 objective they would impart their ideality to the ob- 
 jective world and change it to mere appearance ; by 
 conceiving space and time (and ia addition to the 
 forms of our sensibility also the forms of our think- 
 ing) as purely ideal, viz., as subjective properties of 
 the mind, he assures us that the world, our own ex- 
 istence included, will be saved from the general col- 
 lapse which it otherwise in his opinion must suffer, 
 
 KANT AND SWEDENBORG. 
 
 The development of Kant's theory of the ideality 
 of space and time coincides with his investigation of 
 Swedenborg's philosophy, if that word be applicable 
 to a world-conception which afterwards was denom- 
 inated by Kant himself as "dreams of A visionary." 
 Swedenborgians claim that Kant was influenced by 
 Swedenborg in the formulation of his critical ideal- 
 ism ; and Mr. Albert J. Edmunds discusses the sub- 
 ject in an article which appeared in the J^ew Church 
 Review, Vol. IV., No. 2, under the title: Time and 
 Space : Hints Given by Swedenborg to Kant. While it 
 appears that there is less borrowing on the part of 
 Kant than can be made out by Swedenborg's adher- 
 
 1 Critiqut o/Fure Reason, Supplement VI. of snd edition. 
 
kant's philosophy. i8g 
 
 ents, there is more justice in the claim of Sweden- 
 borg's influence over Kant than seems to be palatable 
 to such Kant scholars as is Professor Vaihinger. 
 Frank Sewall, the editor of the New Church Review, 
 goes over the field in an article entitled : Kant ana 
 Swedenborg on Cognition, in which he makes out a 
 good case scarcely less favorable for Swedenborg than 
 does Edmunds. The fact is that the mystical ideas 
 on space and time which permeate religious thought 
 had their effect on Swedenborg as much as on other 
 thinkers, mystics as well as philosophers, and among 
 the latter, on Kant ; and certain formulations of the 
 problem which can be found in Swedenborg, did not 
 strike Kant as much as may appear by a mere com- 
 parison of the passages. 
 
 Mr. Edmunds quotes the following passages from 
 Leibnitz, on space and time : 
 
 ' ' Since space in itself is an ideal thing like time, it must nec- 
 essarily follow that space outside the world is imaginary, as even 
 the schoolmen have acknowledged it to be. The same is the case 
 with empty space in the world — which I still believe to be imagin- 
 ary, for the reasons which I have set forth." (V. 33.) 
 
 "There is no space at all where there is no matter." (V. 62.) 
 
 "Space . . . is something ideal." (V. 104.) 
 
 "The immensity of God is independent of space, as the eter- 
 nity of God is independent of time." (V. 106.) 
 
 ' ' Had there been no creatures, space and time would only 
 have existed in the ideas of God." (Paper IV. 41.) 
 
 Here Leibnitz uses the very word "ideal," of both 
 space and time. Incidentally we must add that natu- 
 ralists of to-day will no longer countenance Leibnitz's 
 view of the non-existence of empty space. 
 
 There is even the religious mysticism displayed by 
 Leibnitz which makes God independent of space and 
 time. Swedenborg says the same about the angels : 
 
igo kant's philosophy. 
 
 ' ' The angels have no idea of time. Such is the case in the 
 world of spirits and still more perfectly in heaven: how much 
 more before the Lord." {Arca?ia Ccelestia, 1274.) 
 
 It is a fact that Kant had read Swedenborg, but 
 the coincidences as to the ideality of space and time 
 and the theory of cognition are trivial as compared 
 with the coincidences with former philosophers, such 
 as Leibnitz. The truth is, we have in Swedenborg 
 the type of a religious thinker who formulates his 
 conception of space and time and other metaphysical 
 doctrines in the shape of mystical allegories, after the 
 fashion of Jacob Boehme and other religious vision- 
 aries. It is wrong on the one side to overestimate his 
 mystical expressions, which are commonplace among 
 authors of his ilk, and, on the other hand, to ridicule 
 them as purely visionary, devoid of philosophical 
 value. It is characteristic of the human mind at a 
 certain stage of its development to formulate in mys- 
 tical language philosophical conceptions which lie 
 beyond the grasp of the intellect of that peculiar stage 
 of growth. It is the religious attitude of approaching 
 philosophical problems in mystical expressions. While 
 it is natural for a scientist to ridicule the mystic for 
 claiming to have solved the world-problem though 
 producing nothing but air-bubbles, it is at the same 
 time a one-sidedness to see in mysticism nothing but 
 wild and worthless hallucinations. Mysticism is a 
 solution of the world-problem by sentiment, and it 
 affords the great advantage of determining and estab- 
 lishing the moral attitude of its devotees. Considered 
 as science it is absolutely worthless, considered as a 
 guide in life its worth is determined by the spirit of 
 which it is born. Where the religious sentiment is 
 serious, deep, and noble, mysticism will find a poeti- 
 
rant's philosophy. 191 
 
 cal expression full of significance, depth, and aspira- 
 tion. Kant as a religious man was attracted by Swe- 
 denborg, but when he weighed his revelations as phi- 
 losophy he was so disappointed that he felt ashamed 
 of having been caught among the credulous investi- 
 gators of occult phenomena. 
 
 Swedenborg is one of the most representative mys- 
 tics, and while his books may be worthless as philo- 
 sophical treatises, they are not only interesting to the 
 scientist because typical of a certain phase in the reli- 
 gious development of human nature, but also classi- 
 cal as mystical literature. The appreciation which he 
 has found among a number of adherents proves too 
 well how deeply his way of presenting metaphysical 
 problems in the shape of allegorical dreams is founded 
 in the peculiar constitution of man's spiritual system. 
 Those who took the trouble to investigate his miracles 
 and prophecies found that, however much might be 
 surmised, nothing could be definitely proved, except 
 the fact that there are people of fair and sometimes 
 even extraordinary intelligence who have a decided 
 inclination to believe in occult phenomena, that they, 
 though subjectively honest, can easily become con- 
 vinced of things which they are anxious to believe, 
 and finally that in minds where a vivid imagination 
 checks the development of critical acumen, the poeti- 
 cal conceptions of religious faith grow so definite and 
 concrete as to become indistinguishable from actual 
 life and reality. 
 
 Now, what are the lessons of the relation of mysti- 
 cism to science? 
 
 We ought to consider that certain metaphysical 
 truths (as to the nature of space, time, our mode of 
 cognition, causation, infinity, eternity, etc.), when 
 
iga kant's philosophy. 
 
 stated in abstract formulas, seem dry and unmeaning 
 to unscientific minds, yet they possess a deep religious 
 significance which finds allegorical expression in the 
 various religious systems in myths, ceremonial insti- 
 tutions, and dogmas. By sensual natures who cling 
 to the allegorical feature of the allegory, they can be 
 appreciated only if they are expressed in a sensual 
 way, if spiritual truths are told in parables of concrete 
 instances as if they were material facts of the material 
 world. It is characteristic of mystical minds to live 
 in an atmosphere of sensual symbolism in such a way 
 that they believe their own dreams, and their assur- 
 ance makes their statement so convincing that they 
 easily find followers among those who are kin to them 
 in their mental constitution. As soon as a critical 
 reader tries to verify the statements of such men, he 
 finds himself irritated by a heap of worthless evidence, 
 and the result is an indignation such as Kant showed 
 after his perusal of Swedenborg's Arcana. 
 
 The following summarised statement of Sweden- 
 borg's world-conception is given by Kant in his Essay 
 on Swedenborg, which appeared in 1766 -^ 
 
 "Each human soul has in this life its place in the spirit-world, 
 and belongs to a certain society, which in every case is in harmony 
 with its internal condition of truth and good, that is, of under- 
 standing and will. But the location of spirits among themselves 
 has nothing in common with space in the material world. The 
 soul of one man, therefore, in India can be next-door neighbor to 
 that of another in Europe, so far as spiritual position is con- 
 cerned ; while those who, as to the body, live in one house, may 
 be quite far enough distant from one another as to those [that is, 
 spiritual] conditions. When man dies his soul does not change its 
 place, but only perceives itself in the same wherein, with regard 
 to other spirits, it already was in this life. Besides, although the 
 
 1 We quote from Mr. Albert ]. Edmunds's essay in the New Church Review, 
 Vol. IV., p. J61. 
 
kant's philosophy. 193 
 
 mutual relation of spirits is not in real space, yet it has to them the 
 appearance of space, and their relations are represented, irith their 
 accompanying conditions, as nearnesses ; their differences as dis- 
 tances, even as the spirits themselves have not really extension, 
 yet present to one another the appearance of a human form. In 
 this imaginary space there is a plenary community of spiritual 
 natures. Swedenborg speaks with departed souls whenever he 
 pleases, etc." 
 
 Now, if we comprehend that besides the causal 
 connexion of things in space and time there is a logical 
 interrelation which appertains to pure reason, we shall 
 come to the conclusion that Swedenborg's ideas are 
 quite legitimate, if they are but understood to be poet- 
 ical and if we are permitted to conceive them in a 
 strictly scientific sense. We read : 
 
 ''The soul of one man in India can be next-door neighbor to 
 that of another in Europe so far as spiritual position is concerned; 
 while those who as to the body live in one house may be quite far 
 enough distant from one another as to those (that is, spiritual) 
 conditions. " 
 
 Now, it is obvious that this sympathy of souls, 
 which is not according to space and time, but accord- 
 ing to spiritual kinship, is quite legitimate and very 
 important to those who understand it. The sensual 
 man will find difficulty in grasping its significance, ex- 
 cept that it be stated to him in a sensual way. Ob- 
 viously, it is true that "spirits themselves have not 
 really extension." Their interrelation is of a different 
 kind. But if we imagine them, as Swedenborg does, 
 "to present to one another the appearance of a hu- 
 man form," we conceive of their existence as though 
 it were in space, another kind of space than that filled 
 by matter, and "in this imaginary space there is a 
 plenary community of spiritual natures." Thus logi- 
 cians represent the interrelation between genus and 
 
194 KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 species by geometrical figure, the one including the 
 other. 
 
 Swedenborg is simply a man whose imagination is 
 so vivid and whose scientific criticism is so little de- 
 veloped that the imaginary space invented to repre- 
 sent the interrelations of spiritual realities which are 
 in neither space nor time, becomes an actual space 
 to him ; his spirits become materialised shapes, and 
 thus it happens that he can speak "with departed 
 souls whenever he pleases." A scientist too, a his- 
 torian or a naturalist, can consult the wisdom of the 
 departed spirits. He can make himself acquainted 
 with the views of Newton, of Goethe, of Kant; he 
 can incorporate their souls in his own being, but being - 
 of a critical nature, he will not see them as bodily 
 shapes. It is characteristic of mystics that their im- 
 agination outruns their sobriety, and thus the flights 
 of their fancy become real to them. 
 
 While it is not impossible that Swedenborg be- 
 came the fulcrum on which Kant elaborated his meta- 
 physics, we may at the same time justify the oppo- 
 site statement that Kant's relation to Swedenborg is 
 purely incidental and without significance. The elab- 
 oration of his theories as to space and time and cogni- 
 tion, Kant made at the time when he read Sweden- 
 borg's works, but we must be aware of the fact that 
 Kant was familiar with mystic views in general, and 
 Swedenborg's expressions did not strike him as much 
 as it might appear to those who compare Swedenborg 
 and Kant only, but have no reference to Leibnitz and 
 other thinkers. Certainly, Kant would have come to 
 the same conclusion if he had dealt with any other 
 thinker of a similar type, Jacob Boehme, or even 
 spirits on a lower level in the line of mysticism. 
 
want's philosophy. 19S 
 
 While Kant's statements show a certain resem- 
 blance to those of Swedenborg, we find that their 
 agreement with Leibnitz (a philosopher whom both 
 Immanuels, the great mystic as well as the great 
 critic, had studied carefully) is much closer. We shall 
 at the same time understand why Kant exhibited a de- 
 cided contempt and scorn for the dreamy haziness of 
 these visionaries, which, when dealing with scientific 
 problems, is sterile and unprofitable. In contrasting 
 the philosophical study of metaphysics with those 
 vague fancies of religio-philosophical dreams, Kant 
 compared the latter to the intangible shade of a de- 
 parted spirit, quoting Virgil's well-known verses where 
 ^neas in the under-world tries to embrace the soul of 
 his departed father, Anchises.^ Kant says : 
 
 ' ' Metaphysics, with whom it is my destiny to be in love, offers 
 two advantages, although I have but seldom been favored by her : 
 the £rst is, to solve the problems which the investigating mind 
 raises when it is on the track of the more hidden properties of 
 things through reason. But here the result very frequently de- 
 ceives hope, and has also in this case escaped our longing bands. 
 "Ter frustra comprensa manus efEugit imago, 
 Par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno." — (Virgil.) 
 [Thrice I tried to embrace and thrice it escaped me, the image, 
 Airy and light as the wind, and to volatile dreams to be likened.] 
 
 KANT'S ANTINOMIES. 
 
 After this digression we revert to Kant's idealism 
 and will now point out the result to which it leads. 
 
 Kant, as we have seen, protests against being an 
 idealist in the sense that the reality of the external 
 world of objects or things be denied. His idealism 
 insists only on the ideality of space and time ; and by 
 ideality he understands subjectivity. But together 
 
 l^neas. Book VI., Verses 701-70Z. 
 
196 rant's philosophy. 
 
 with time and space all our forms of thought are as- 
 sumed to be purely ideal. Hence there is a rift rend- 
 ing asunder form and substance, thought and reality, 
 representa,tive image or phenomenon and the repre- 
 sented objects. We know phenomena, not noumena. 
 Things in themselves are unknowable, for the laws of 
 pure form have reference to appearances only. 
 
 If purely formal thought has no objective value, it 
 can be used merely to decide problems that lie within 
 the range of experience — the domain of appearance ; 
 but things in themselves, the domain of transcendent 
 existence, lies without the pale of any possible knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 Kant's method of dealing with these subjects is 
 peculiar. He neither leaves them alone nor solves 
 them, but formulates the affirmations as well as the 
 negations of a series of contradictory statements in 
 what he calls "the antinomies." Here the weakness 
 of Kant's philosophy comes out, indicating that there 
 must be a flaw in it somewhere. 
 
 It is interesting to notice that as to Kant's Antino- 
 mies of Pure Reason the great Kfinigsberg philosopher 
 has been anticipated by Buddhism in which (accord- 
 ing to Neumann's ^^^«« Gauiamo's, Vol. II., Nos. 60 
 and 72) the antinomies are taught in a similar, partly 
 literally in the same, form. But there, too, the con- 
 tradiction belongs to the formulation of the statement 
 of facts, not to the facts themselves. 
 
 In a certain sense we can say, the world must have 
 had a beginning, and must come to an end ; and the 
 world had no beginning and can have no end. If we 
 speak of this definite nebular system of stars compris- 
 ing the entire milky way we are compelled to admit 
 that it began and will at some definite though distant 
 
rant's philosophy. 197 
 
 future be dissolved again ; but If wo mean by world 
 the totality of existence in all its shapes, prior forms 
 and causes of origin, we must own that it has existed 
 and ever will exist. We could go back in thought to 
 the time before the present cosmos started, when 
 other worlds were evolving or dissolving and a differ- 
 ent kind of universe or condition of things prevailed 
 and so on without coming to an end. But these con- 
 ditions being the causes of the present world are in- 
 cluded in our concept of the universe. The antino- 
 mies are due to the equivocal significance of our 
 words, not to a fault of reason ; nor do they indicate 
 that existence itself is self-contradictory. The con- 
 tradiction is not in the things but in our conception 
 of things.^ 
 
 Schopenhauer has vigorously attacked Kant on 
 account of his antinomies, insinuating weakness and 
 hypocrisy. But it seems to us, while by no means 
 agreeing with Kant on this particular point, that 
 granting his premises his conclusion was justified. 
 The four points of the antinomies, viz., the eternity 
 and infinite divisibility of the world, the contrast of 
 freedom to causation and the existence of God, are 
 no longer of a purely formal nature ; some notions of 
 experience are inevitably mixed up in them, and thus 
 
 1 That the antinomies cannot be regarded as true antinomies or contra- 
 dictions of reason, but as the result of a misconception and laclc of clearness 
 in our formulation of the several problems, becomes apparent in the antin- 
 omy of freedom versus necessity. Kant's definition of freedom (§ 53) as a fac- 
 ulty of starting a chain of events spontaneously without antecedent causes 
 and bis way of reconciling freedom and nature (or as we would say "deter- 
 minism ") is subject to serious criticism. Compare the author's solution of 
 the problem in Fundamental Problems^ pp. igi-196.; Ethical Problems^ pp. 45- 
 50, 152-156; Primer of Philosophy ^ pp. 159-164; Soulof Man^ pp. 389-397. See 
 also The Monist, Vol. III., pp. 611 ff., "The Future in Mental Causation." 
 Concerning the ought and its assumed mysterious nature compare the chap-' 
 ters "The Is and the Ought," and "An Analysis of the Moral Ought," in The 
 Ethical Problem, pp. 279-295. 
 
igS KANT'S PHILOSOPltY. 
 
 pure reason is unable to decide either way. We might 
 as well try to determine by a priori considerations as 
 to whether or not electricity can be produced by fric- 
 tion, or whether or not by rubbing an old metal lamp 
 the genii of the lamp will appear. Hence, before the 
 tribunal of pure reason either side, the affirmative as 
 well as the negative, is defensible, and thus we should 
 be obliged to settle the question with other methods j 
 other methods, however, according to Kant's notions 
 concerning the nature of metaphysical questions, 
 would not be admissible, because he insists that all 
 metaphysical notions must be derived from pure con- 
 cepts alone. 
 
 KANT'S PROBLEM. 
 
 Kant's philosophy has become the beginning of a 
 new epoch in the evolution of human thought through 
 a formulation of its basic problem and by starting out 
 in the right direction for its solution ; but Kant has 
 not spoken the final word. 
 
 Kant was awakened from his dogmatic slumber by 
 Hume's scepticism, and it was Hume's problem as to 
 the nature of causation which prompted him to strike 
 a new path in the conception of philosophical prob- 
 lems. 
 
 Kant threw light on Hume's problem by general- 
 ising it and recognising the kinship of the concep- 
 tion of causation to mathematics and logic, all of them 
 being purely formal knowledge. The significance of 
 formal thought and its power of affording a priori cog- 
 nitions is Kant's peculiar problem. 
 
 It is generally conceded that Kant solved Hume's 
 problem, but he failed to solve his own. 
 
KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 1 99 
 
 By a strange misapprehension of the nature of form 
 and its non-objectivity, he has switched off into an 
 idealism (so called by himself) which it will be hard 
 to distinguish from that subjectivism which he as- 
 sumed Berkeley's philosophy to be. The difference 
 between the two (in Kant's opinion) consists in this, 
 that according to Kant, the world itself is real but in 
 the form in which it represents itself in space and 
 time it is phenomenal, while he declares that accord- 
 ing to Berkeley the world itself is " illusory appear- 
 ance." Further Kant insists that the world as appear- 
 ance, though purely phenomenal, is not an arbitrary 
 illusion, but governed by laws which render it neces- 
 sary in all its details. 
 
 The great merit of Kant is his wonderfully keen 
 discrimination between the purely formal and the sen- 
 sory, showing that the former is throughout universal 
 and necessary in its principles, while the latter is in- 
 cidental and concrete or particular; but he fails to 
 apply the same discrimination to his conception of 
 experience and to the objects of experience, and thus 
 he limits the formal to the subject, while it is obvi- 
 ously the universal feature of all existence, objective 
 as well as subjective, constituting between them the 
 connecting link that makes science, i. e., objective 
 cognition, possible. 
 
 Before we examine Kant's position, we must first 
 discuss, at least briefly, Hume's problem and offer the 
 solution in the form which Kant, in our opinion, ought 
 to have given it. It will then be easy to point out the 
 error that led him astray and prevented him from 
 offering a definite and final doctrine as to the nature 
 of form which should become the basis of all scientific 
 inquiry, and enable philosophy to become a science as 
 
200 ■ KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 definite, or nearly so, as are mathematics and logic, 
 or even physics. 
 
 HUME'S PROBLEM. 
 
 Locke objected to the doctrine of innate ideas, 
 claiming that all ideas were the products of sense- 
 impressions, and he excepted only one idea, viz. , the 
 principle of necessary connexion, i. e., causality. 
 Hume accepted Locke's sensualism, but, endeavoring 
 to be more consistent, drew its last consequence by 
 denying even the idea of cause and effect as a neces- 
 sary connexion. He argued that we meet with con- 
 stant conjunctions in experience, but not with neces- 
 sity. By habit we are compelled to expect that upon 
 every cause its due effect will follow, but there is no 
 reason to assume that causation is due to a universal 
 and necessary law of objective validity. Hume saw 
 in the relation between cause and effect a synthesis, 
 calling it "the sequence of two objects"; and if it 
 were a synthesis, or a mere sequence, he would be 
 right that the connexion between cause and effect is 
 accidental and our belief in its necessity a mere habit. 
 
 The truth is that causation is not a sequence of 
 two objects following one another, but one process, a 
 motion, or a change of place ; and the simplest kind 
 of motion implies that there are at least three phases 
 or states of things in the system in which the motion 
 takes place : first the original condition (which for sim- 
 plicity's sake we may assume to be in a relative equi- 
 librium); secondly, the motion disturbing the equi- 
 librium so as to make one or several elements in the 
 system seek new places ; and thirdly, the new adjust- 
 ment (which for simplicity's sake we will again regard 
 as being in equilibrium). The first phase is called 
 
KANT's philosophy. 20I 
 
 the conditions or circumstances, the second is the 
 cause, and the third the effect. Cause and effect are 
 not combined into a unity by the compulsion of a law 
 of necessary connexion ; they are two phases of one 
 and the same process. The duality is a product of 
 abstraction ; the unity of the two is the original fact, 
 and we know now that causality is but another ex- 
 pression for the law of the conservation of matter and 
 energy. The naturalist assumes that matter and en- 
 ergy are indestructible, and thus every process that 
 takes place in nature is only a transformation. Ac- 
 cordingly, our belief in causation is after all, although 
 Hume denied it, finally based upon the logical prin- 
 ciple of identity A=A. It is an extension of this prin- 
 ciple to a state of motion. 
 
 Cause, accordingly, is never an object, but always 
 an event, viz., a motion of some kind. We cannot 
 call the bullet the cause and death the effect ; or mer- 
 cury the cause and paralysis the effect ; or worse still 
 (as says George Lewes) that whiskey, water, sugar, 
 and lemon are the causes of punch. 
 
 We distinguish between cause and reason, reason 
 being the law under which a single event is subsumed 
 for the sake of explaining the effectiveness of the 
 cause. * 
 
 IThe instinct of language has here proved wiser than the scholarship of 
 philosophers. All European languages (the Greek, the Latin, together with 
 its derivatives the French, Italian, etc., the German, the English) distin- 
 guish between " alria, causa, Ursache (from the same root as the English verb 
 'to seek') cause," and *^ apxri (i. c, first principle) ratio, Grund, reason," 
 the former being the particular incident that starts a process, the latter the 
 raison d'Stre, the principle, or general rule, the natural law that explains it. 
 When the two ideas are confounded as has been done frequently by philoso- 
 phers, the greatest confusion results leading to such self-contradictory no- 
 tions as "causasui" "first cause," "ultimate cause," etc., which lead either 
 to agnosticism or to mysticism. For further details see the author's Primer 
 of Pkilosophy, the chapter on Causation, pp. 30-34, and Fundamental Prob- 
 lems, pp. 29-30. 
 
202 KANT S PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Kant, following the suggestion of Hume, devoted 
 special attention to the problem of causality, but he 
 solved it by simply declaring that it was a concept 
 a priori, and thus belonged to the same class of 
 truths as mathematical, arithmetical, and logical the- 
 orems. He never attempted to explain its truth, let 
 alone to prove it, or to demonstrate its universality 
 and necessity. Mathematicians deem it necessary to 
 prove their theorems, but Kant, strange to say, neg- 
 lected to deduce the law of causation from simpler 
 truths or analyse it into its elements. If Kant had 
 made attempts to analyse causation for the sake of 
 proving its validity after the fashion of logicians and 
 mathematicians, he might, with his keen insight into 
 the nature of physical laws and natural sciences, have- 
 anticipated the discovery of the law of the conserva- 
 tion of matter and energy, and might furthermore have 
 been preserved from the error of his subjectivism 
 which affected the whole system of his thought and 
 twisted his philosophy out of shape. 
 
 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant's position re- 
 mains unintelligible; we understand his arguments 
 and may even approve the several statements from 
 which they proceed, but we are astonished at the bold- 
 ness of the conclusion, and fail to be convinced. His 
 objections to the belief in space and time as objective 
 things hold good only if space and time are assumed 
 to be things or objects ; but not if they are thought to 
 be mere forms of objects. They are thinkable as forms 
 of thought not less than as forms of objects. When 
 assumed to be solely forms of thought to the exclu- 
 sion of the idea that there are any objective relations 
 
kant's philosophy. 203 
 
 corresponding to them, they become mysterious and 
 quite mystical, and here lies the reason why Kant's 
 Critique of Pure Reason is actually mystifying. He 
 bewilders the reader. We become acquainted with 
 his argument but do not feel sure that we have rightly 
 apprehended his meaning. In the Prolegomena Kant 
 is, at least, not unintelligible. The Prolegomena are 
 not deductive, but inductive. In them Kant leads us 
 the way he travelled himself, and this is the reason of 
 the importance of the Prolegomena. Kant embodied 
 their contents in various places into the second edi- 
 tion of his Critique of Pure Reason. But the passages 
 are scattered and lose the plainness and power which 
 they possess in the context of the Prolegomena. Here 
 we are face to face with Kant as a man ; he gives us 
 a personal reply, as if he were interviewed ; and while 
 we grant the significance of transcendentalism and the 
 truth of many of his observations and deductions, we 
 can at the same time understand how Le arrived at 
 errors. We can lay our finger on the very spot where 
 he went astray, and I cannot but wonder at the cour- 
 age of this undaunted thinker who abided by the con- 
 sequences of an apparently trivial fallacy, due to the 
 neglect to investigate one feature of the problem to 
 which he devoted many years of his life in profound 
 reflexion and close study. 
 
 Kant was puzzled that we could know anything a 
 priori concerning the formal constitution of things. 
 The celestial bodies obey laws which man develops 
 out of his mind. That the highest (i. e., the most 
 general or universal) laws of nature should happen to 
 be the same as the highest (i. e., the formal) laws of 
 the thinking mind, and yet should be of an indepen- 
 dent origin, seemed absurd to Kant. He saw only 
 
204 kant's philosophy. 
 
 two possibilities ; either, he said, we have derived our 
 formal knowledge from the things by experience, or 
 we ourselves have put it into the things to which it 
 really does not belong. The former possibility is ex- 
 cluded, because, says Kant {Prolegomena, § 9), "The 
 properties of a thing cannot migrate into my faculty 
 of representation," while on the other hand the purely 
 formal truths are not derived from experience, but 
 produced by the mind as cognitions a priori. Thus, 
 Kant accepts the other horn of the dilemma, declar- 
 ing {Prolegomena, § 36) that our faculty of cognition 
 does not conform to the objects, but contrariwise, that 
 the objects conform to cognition. Objects, he claimed, 
 do not in themselves possess form, but our mind is so 
 constituted that it cannot help attributing form and 
 everything formal to the object of our experience. 
 
 IDEALITY NOT SUBJECTIVITY. 
 
 Now, it is true that our purely formal notions of 
 mathematical and logical truths are ideal (made of 
 the stuff that ideas consist of), but being purely formal 
 they are definitely determined, that is to say that, 
 wherever the same constructions are made, either by 
 the operations of other minds or of natural conditions 
 in the facts of objective reality, they will be found, to 
 be the same. Thus, our mental constructions can re- 
 construct the processes and formations of nature, and 
 we can learn to predetermine the course of natural 
 events. 
 
 Kant did not see that form might be a property of 
 all existence and that, in that case, the purely formal 
 in things would be of the same nature as the purely 
 formal in man's mind. It is true that the properties 
 
rant's philosophy. 205 
 
 of things do not migrate from the objects into the sub- 
 ject, but they make impressions upon the senses and 
 these several impressions possess analogies to the 
 qualities by which they are caused. The analogies 
 between matter and sensation seem much more arbi- 
 trary than those between the shapes of things and the 
 outlines of our sense-images. Nevertheless even here 
 we grant that the reduction of the latter to universal 
 laws is purely subjective, for there are no laws, qua 
 formulated laws, in the objective world, there are only 
 uniformities. But if we understand by the term law 
 a description of uniformities we must see at once that 
 there are objective realities (or rather features of real- 
 ity) corresponding to our correct notions of the sev- 
 eral formal laws. 
 
 If the uniformities of nature are not transferred 
 to the mind directly, but if the purely formal con- 
 cepts are developed independently of sense- experience 
 a priori, how is it possible that the two present the 
 v/onderful a:greement that puzzled Kant? 
 
 Nature is throughout activity, and so is our exist- 
 ence. Nature is constantly combining and separating ; 
 we observe transformations; things move about; and 
 their constituent parts change places. Similar ope- 
 rations are inalienable functions of the mind. The 
 subtlest analysis as well as the most complicated com- 
 position and every investigation, be it ever so intri- 
 cate, are mere combinations and separations, activi- 
 ties given together with our existence. 
 
 The arguments of Kant by which he proves the 
 apriority of purely formal laws must be granted to be 
 true. The source of all purely formal thought is the 
 mind, and not sense- perceptions. They are ideal. 
 But the mind has been built up by experience, viz., 
 
2o6 kant's philosophy. 
 
 by sense-impressions of different but definite forms, 
 and the formal order of objective nature is the mould 
 in which the mind has been formed. The brute can- 
 not as yet analyse sensations into their forms and ma- 
 terials, i. e., into the purely relational and the purely 
 sensory features ; but man can ; and when he has ac- 
 quired the power of abstraction he can build models 
 of forms, exhausting the entire scope of all possible 
 cases, and these models serve him as examples of the 
 several analogous formations of nature. Accordingly, 
 our mental constitution, though a subjective construc- 
 tion, is built up with materials quarried from the 
 formal uniformities of objective nature. Thus the 
 spider undoubtedly weaves his web from his own bod- 
 ily self, but the materials have first been deposited 
 there by nature. Man's mind is not less than the spi- 
 der's silken thread, produced by, and remaining a part 
 and an expression of, that great All-Being in which 
 all creatures live and move and have their being. 
 
 There is this difference between the spider's web 
 and formal thought : the former consists of matter, 
 the pure forms of mathematical, logical, and other 
 ideas are immaterial ; they are abstracts made of the 
 purely relational features of sense-impressions. They 
 are ideal, viz., mental pictures, and as such they are 
 subjective. But they are not purely subjective. The 
 sensory part of a retinal image is purely subjective, 
 but the formal preserves in a reduced size the projec- 
 tion of the shape of the object. Form belongs to the 
 object as well as to its subjective image, and thus the 
 subjective conception of form possesses an objective 
 value. 
 
 Everything ideal is subjective, but it need not be 
 purely subjective. Because the rational is ideal, it by 
 
rant's philosophy. 207 
 
 no means follows that it is not, and cannot be, objec- 
 tive. 
 
 When we construct some purely formal configura- 
 tion with our nature-given mental operations, it will 
 be the same as any other construction which has been 
 made in the same way, be it in the domain either of 
 things or of other minds. Nature performs the same 
 operations which appear in man's mental activity. 
 Man being a part of existence, what is more natural 
 than that his bodily and mental constitution partakes 
 of the same form as all the other parts of the world 
 that surrounds him? 
 
 A great and important part of our knowledge con- 
 sists of purely formal theorems ; they are a priori. And 
 these purely formal theorems contain actual informa- 
 tion concerning the formal aspect of the real world. 
 And why? Because they are systematic reconstruc- 
 tions of the formal features of reality by imitating 
 operations of motion which take place throughout the 
 universe. 
 
 All formal theorems have a general application, 
 hence, whenever applicable, they afford a priori in- 
 formation and can be employed as a key to unlock the 
 mysteries of the unknown. 
 
 By the rule of three we calculate the distance from 
 the earth to the sun, and map out the paths of the 
 several celestial bodies. 
 
 When Kant says: Our mind "dictates" certain 
 laws to the objects of experience, he uses a wrong ex- 
 pression or takes a poetical license seriously. The 
 mind "dictates" nothing to reality. Reality includ- 
 ing its form is such as it is independently of what we 
 think it to be. That which Kant calls dictating is a 
 mere determining, a des.cription, implying at the same 
 
2o8 kant's philosophy. 
 
 time a foretelling or predicting of natural events which 
 (as we saw) is done by constructing in our mind anal- 
 ogous models. The agreement between our model 
 and reality proves only that the scheme on which the 
 model has been constructed is correct; it does not 
 prove that the model does any dictating. The model 
 dictates as little to reality as a barometer dictates what 
 air-pressure there is to be in the atmosphere. 
 
 THE FORMAL AND THE SENSORY. 
 
 While we must object to Kant's doctrine that 
 everything ideal is subjective and that what is directly 
 derived from the mind cannot be objective, we must 
 not (with the Sensualists) place the formal and the 
 sensual on the same level. Kant is right that space 
 and time are not objects or things or entities ; they 
 are forms, and as forms they possess the quality of 
 being empty. There is no particularity about them 
 anywhere. Thus, space is space anywhere ; it is not 
 like matter, denser here and looser there; nor like 
 energy, here intense, there weak. Considered in it- 
 self, space is the mere potentiality of existence. It is 
 a description of the condition of granting motion to 
 move in all directions. Its very indifference and ab- 
 sence of anything particular implies uniformity ; and 
 thus the laws of potentiality (i. e., the qualities of 
 possible forms) are mere schedules ; they are empty 
 in themselves, but possess universal application.^ 
 
 The formal aspect of reality is its suchness ; the 
 material element is its thisness. All suchness can be 
 
 1 These truths hav'e been felt by philosophers of all nations, and it is sur- 
 prising to find them in the writings of Lao Tze and the Buddhist scriptures 
 in both of which the absence of materiality, the not-being, plays an impor- 
 tant part and is endowed with religious sanctity. 
 
rant's philosophy. 2og 
 
 formulated in general, and even in universal, descrip- 
 tions ; all thisness is individual and particular. State- 
 ments of a general nature, such as are formulated by 
 employing the methods of formal thought, are not 
 single and concrete facts, but omnipresent and eter- 
 nal laws ; they are true or untrue, correct or incor- 
 rect. Facts of thisness are always in a special time 
 and in a special spot in space. They are definite nunc 
 and hie, not a semper and ubique. They are not true 
 or untrue, but real or unreal. 
 
 The essential feature of things is their form ; for 
 their form, which is their suchness, viz., their exter- 
 nal shape as wejl as internal structure, constitutes 
 their character, their soul, their spiritual, significance, 
 making them what they are. Their thisness is their 
 concrete presence which actualises the thing as a 
 stubborn fact of the material universe. 
 
 It is true that the sense-pictures in which the 
 world is represented to us are subjective; they are 
 appearances or phenomena; it is further true that 
 these pictures are radically different from the things 
 which they represent. The color-sensation red has 
 no similarity (as Kant rightly observes) to the physi- 
 cal qualities of Vermillion ; and physicists have suffi- 
 ciently penetrated into the constitution of matter of 
 any kind (though most of the problems remain still 
 unsolved) to convince us that matter as it is in itself 
 is radically different from the subjective picture as 
 which it presents itself to the senses. But the scien- 
 tist assumes form to be objective, and all the theories 
 as- to the constitution of matter, in chemistry as well 
 as in the several branches of physics, are based on 
 the principle of eliminating the subjective element, 
 that is to say. the properly sensory ingredients of our 
 
2IO KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 experience, by reducing them to statements in purely 
 formal terms, which is done by measuring, by count- 
 ing, by weighing, by defining their proportions, by 
 describing their shape and structure, by determining 
 their relations ; and if we have succeeded in doing so, 
 we claim to have understood the objective nature of 
 things. How can Kant's statement be upheld, that 
 the sensation red is not an objective quality of Ver- 
 million ? Is it not because physics has taught us that 
 difference of color depends upon a difference of wave- 
 length in ether vibration ? Kant's argument is based 
 upon a tacit but indispensable recognition of the ob- 
 jectivity of form and formal qualities. 
 
 Therefore, while granting that the sense-begotten 
 world-picture of our intuition is subjective appear- 
 ance (cf. footnote on page 232), we claim in contrast 
 to Kant that its formal elements represent a feature 
 that inheres in existence as the form of existence. 
 
 In making form purely subjective, Kant changes 
 — notwithstanding his protestations — all ideas, all 
 thoughts, all science, into purely subjective conceits. 
 He is more of an idealist than Berkeley. Science can 
 be regarded as an objective method of cognition only 
 if the laws of form are objective features of reality 
 
 THE MORAL ASPECT. 
 
 An incidental remark on the moral aspect of the 
 contrast between the purely formal and the sensory 
 would not seem out of place here. Man has risen from 
 the sensual plane into the abstract realms of reason, 
 and morality becomes possible only by man's ability to 
 make general principles the basis of his actions. Thus 
 it happens that at a certain period of man's develop- 
 ment the sensory is regarded as the lower, and gen- 
 
KANT's philosophy. 211 
 
 eralisations with what they imply, ideals, maxims, 
 abstract thought, as the higher. The sensory is thus 
 discriminated against and even denounced as the en- 
 emy of the spiritual. Hence the dualistic phase in 
 the religious and philosophical evolution of mankind 
 in which sensuality is branded as sin and salvation 
 sought in asceticism, i. e., the mortification of the 
 body. 
 
 We must consider, however, that the contrast be- 
 tween form and matter, general law and particular 
 existence, the ideal and sensory, spirit and matter, 
 does not imply a contradictory antithesis, let alone 
 any hostility or exclusivity of the two. That the spir- 
 itual, viz., the conception of the purely formal with 
 reason and its generalisations, develops only on a 
 higher plane, cannot be used to incriminate the sen- 
 sory and the bodily. On the contrary, the spiritual 
 justifies the sensory and points out the higher aims 
 which it can attain. 
 
 And how indispensable is the sensory in religion! 
 Consider but love, so much insisted on by the preach- 
 ers of almost all higher faiths. Is it not even in its 
 present form a sentiment, i. e., a sensory emotion? 
 The truth is that morality consists in the sanctifica- 
 tion of the sensory, not in its eradication ; and sancti- 
 fication means setting aside and devoting to a special 
 purpose, to the exclusion of a general use. Particu- 
 larity is the nature of bodily existence and particu- 
 larity demands exclusiveness. Any general use of 
 bodily functions will prostitute them. Reason, on the 
 contrary, is meant for general use and can never suffer 
 from a general application. 
 
 Kant's conception of morality is based upon rea- 
 son, to the exclusion of sentiment. Reason makes 
 
212 KANt'S philosophy. 
 
 action according to principles or maxims possible, 
 and all those maxims are moral which can become 
 universally established. Thus the basis of ethics is 
 the golden rule, pronounced by Confucius, Christ, and 
 other religious leaders of mankind. Lao-Tze says of 
 the sage : "His methods invite requital. " ^ 
 
 FORM BOTH SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE. 
 
 We believe we have satisfactorily explained the 
 problem of the a priori, of the purely formal, which 
 puzzled Kant ; we have further shown how and why 
 the laws of purely formal thought agree with the 
 highest laws of nature ; why being devoid of particu- 
 larity they are universal (implying necessity); and 
 there remains only to be pointed out that the validity 
 of science rests upon the assurance of the identity of 
 the subjective and the objective laws of form. Form, 
 being common to both domains, the objectivity of 
 things and the subjectivity of the mind, serves as a 
 bridge on which cognition can advance into the un- 
 known realms of objective existence, and thus the 
 formal sciences constitute our organ of cognition, the 
 objective reliability of which depends upon form be- 
 ing an objective feature of things. 
 
 It goes without saying that all that Kant says 
 concerning their infinity, uniqueness, universality, 
 and necessity as being against the belief that space 
 and time are objects or things holds good; it proves 
 that they are forms. Yet though they must not be 
 regarded as objects, they are objective ; they are the 
 forms of intuition but also of the objects intuited. 
 Further, what Kant says (relying on symmetry as in- 
 
 I Tao-Teh-King, Chapter 30. 
 
kant's philosophy. 213 
 
 tuitively perceived) to prove that they are forms of 
 intuitions and not concepts, holds as well tp prove 
 that they are sighted forms of existence, not inter- 
 nally hidden qualities of a stuffy, thingish nature to 
 be distilled from sense-perception in the alembic of 
 the observation before its existence can be known. It 
 is true that the world as it appears to us is a sense- 
 woven, subjective picture ; things as we perceive them 
 are phenomena. Further, our concepts, including the 
 world-conception of science, which is built up with 
 the help of the purely formal laws of thought, is a 
 mental construction ; they are noumena. Both worlds, 
 that of sense and that of thought, are subjective; but 
 they represent reality ; the senses picture the world in 
 the beauteous glow of sensations, and the mind de- 
 scribes it in the exact measures of formal determina- 
 tions ; but the latter, if true, offers an objectively valid 
 model of the constitution of things, explaining their 
 suchness without, however, giving any information as 
 to the nature of reality in itself, i. e., what matter is 
 in itself ; whether it is eternal or not ; why it exists ; 
 and if it came into being, or how it happened to orig- 
 inate. It is obvious that things are not matter, but 
 matter of a definite form; the form is cognisable, 
 while matter is simply the indication of their concrete 
 reality as objects in the objective world. 
 
 SUBJECTIVE CONSTRUCTIONS OF OBJECTIVE 
 VALIDITY. 
 
 Kant in discriminating between empirical percep- 
 tion (viz., the sense-impressions possessing only sub- 
 jective validity) and experience (viz. , the product of 
 sense-impressions worked out by the a priori methods 
 of pure reason imparting to our judgments universal- 
 
214 kant's philosophy. 
 
 ity and necessity)^ goes far in refuting himself and his 
 pet theory. He speaks of universality and necessity 
 as the only means by which the subjective elements 
 can become objectively valid. He claims, e. g., to 
 "have, amply shown that they (the concepts of the 
 pure understanding, causality, including also mathe- 
 matics, etc.) and the theorems derived from them are 
 firmly established a priori, or before all experience, 
 and have their undoubted objective value, though only 
 with regard to experience." 
 
 If the concepts of the pure understanding have 
 objective value, why are they not objective? Why 
 must they be regarded as purely subjective? We 
 grant the strength of Kant's argument that, being un- 
 equivocally creations of the mind independent of 
 sense-experience, or, as Kant calls them, a priori, 
 they are subjective. But is not the question legiti- 
 mate that they may be at once subjective and objec- 
 tive? Kant disposes of this question too quickly, and 
 here lies his mistake : instead of investigating how 
 certain uniformities of law may be at once indigen- 
 ously subjective, i. e., originated by purely mental 
 operations, and at the same time objective, i. e., ac- 
 tualised by the operations of material bodies in the 
 concrete world of real existence, he jumps at the con- 
 clusion that all things ideal are necessarily purely 
 subjective. The ideal, viz., all that belongs to the 
 realm of ideas, is subjective, but it has objective va- 
 lidity, and that which gives it objective validity is the 
 mind's power of forming universal and necessary 
 judgments. In fact, the terms universal and neces- 
 sary would have no sense if they were limited to the 
 realm of subjectivity and if objective validity did not 
 
 1 Prolegomena^ g 2 ff. 
 
rant's philosophy. 215 
 
 imply true objectivity. Hence our aim is to explain 
 tlje correspondence between the subjective and the 
 objective, and we come to the conclusion that the 
 a priori judgments are based upon the conditions of 
 pure form, and form is a quality of the object as well 
 as of the subject. 
 
 Thus while Kant's doctrine implies that 
 
 the forms of intuition (space and time) and the 
 formal laws are a priori in the mind ; therefore 
 they are purely subjective and the intuiting and 
 thinking subject transfers them upon the objec- 
 tive world ; 
 our position is the reverse. 
 
 What Kant calls a priori is purely formal ; there- 
 fore the mind can produce its laws and theorems by 
 purely mental operations, yet at the same time, being 
 purely formal, they apply to objective reality as the 
 formal conditions of all objects, and thus the opera- 
 tions of objects, as far as their formal conditions are 
 conce,rned, bear a close analogy to the a priori theo- 
 rems. 
 
 We construct the purely formal in our mind, but 
 we do not create it. Nor are the propositions of 
 mathematics a quality of space. We do not deduce 
 the Pythagorean theorem from space, but we con- 
 struct a right-angled triangle and investigate the re- 
 sults of our construction. Accordingly the theorems 
 thus evolved are products of our mental operations 
 executed on conditions given in our space conception. 
 There are no mathematical theorems in the stellar 
 universe, but there are conditions in the starry heav- 
 ens which make it possible to calculate distances or 
 other relations with the help of arithmetical computa-~ 
 tions and geometric constructions. And the condi- 
 
2l6 rant's tHILOSOPHV. 
 
 tions which make this possible can only be the objec- 
 tivity of form implying that the a priori laws of 
 subjective form as constructed in our mental models 
 possess an objective validity. 
 
 THE OBJECTIVE ANALOGUES OF MENTAL CON- 
 STRUCTIONS. 
 
 Zeno's paradox and the difficulties which Clifford 
 found in the continuity conception of space, it seems 
 to me, arise from a direct identification of the mental 
 construction of space with the objective formal fea- 
 tures of things that constitute what may be called ob- 
 jective space. Objective space is an inherent quality 
 of things as the relational of their parts and is not, as 
 in subjective space, a construction. The path of a 
 body can be represented by a mathematical line, and 
 a line is infinitely divisible ; but for that reason it is 
 not composed of infinite parts. Nor has a moving 
 body to construct a line of an infinite number of in- 
 finitely minute parts by adding them piecemeal. The 
 mental analysis and construction of a line is different 
 from traversing it. For moving over a definite stretch 
 of ground it is not necessary to go through the pro- 
 cess of separately adding the imaginary infinitely 
 small parts of which it is supposed to consist and into 
 which it may be divided. It has not actually been 
 divided, it is only infinitely divisible. 
 
 It is true that time (as time) is purely subjective, 
 but there is a reality that corresponds to time. Time 
 is the measure of motion. We count the running sand 
 of the hour-glass, we divide the face of the sun-dial, 
 we build a clock to determine the lapse of time. 
 There is no time (as time) in the objective world, 
 but there are motions, such as the revolutions of the 
 
rant's philosophy. 217 
 
 earth round its axis, or round the sun, and these mo- 
 tions possess succession with definite duration, ren- 
 dering time, viz., their determination, possible. Dura- 
 tion with succession of events in the world of things 
 is the objective equivalent of time. The measurement 
 of time is a subjective device. 
 
 The same is true of space as a conception of the 
 extended world of things. There is no space concep- 
 tion in things, but bodies are extended ; and their re- 
 lation among themselves is an arrangement of in- 
 numerable juxtapositions. Extension, juxtaposition, 
 direction of motion, is the objective quality of things 
 that corresponds to the purely mental concept of 
 space. 
 
 The untrained and philosophically crude man 
 transfers subjective conceptions of things directly 
 upon the objective world. He speaks of light and 
 colors, of sounds, of time and numbers and things as 
 existing outside of his mind ; but a close inspection of 
 the origin of mind will teach us to discriminate be- 
 tween sound and air waves, between colors and the 
 cause of colors (produced by a commotion in the 
 ether, — a reality whose .existence is directly imper- 
 ceptible and can only be deduced indirectly by argu- 
 ment). We shall learn by reflexion that geometrical 
 lines are purely mental constructions, but that the 
 paths of the stars possess qualities (viz., all those 
 which depend upon purely formal conditions) that 
 closely correspond to the conic sections of mathe- 
 matics. 
 
 Further, it becomes obvious that our division of 
 the world into separate things is artificial, for things 
 are only clusters of predicates which impress us as 
 being units. The truth is that the world is so consti- 
 
2i8 kant's philosophy. 
 
 tuted as to render a perfect separation impossible. 
 Things, are in a perpetual flux, and the limits between 
 them are arbitrary. As the whole atmosphere and its 
 pressure belong to our lungs, so the gravity of the sun 
 is an integral part of the weight of the earth. Thus 
 we can truly say that there are no separate things ex- 
 cept in our minds where they are artificial divisions 
 invented for the practical purpose of describing the 
 world, of mapping out its parts, of comprehending 
 its actions and having a means of adjusting ourselves 
 to our surroundings. 
 
 Logic is purely mental, but there is something in 
 the objective world that tallies with logic ; we call it 
 natural law, but the term law is misleading. There 
 are no laws in nature, but only uniformities resulting 
 from the condition that the purely formal is the same 
 everywhere and that the same formal conditions will 
 produce the same formal effects. 
 
 Purely formal laws are; universally valid only as 
 purely formal laws. Twice two will be four in all 
 arithmetical systems of any possible rational being, 
 and the statement is universally valid so far as pure 
 forms are concerned. If we deal with actualities pos- 
 sessed of additional qualities where multiplication 
 ceases to have its strict mathematical sense, the state- 
 ment will no longer be tenable. The accumulation of 
 power on a definite occasion may have results that 
 cannot be calculated by addition or multiplication. 
 The associated wealth of twice two millions may far 
 exceed four millions; and twice one half will never be 
 one when we deal with living organisms. All this is 
 conceded. Ideal operations are purely mental and as 
 such subjective, but for all that they possess objec- 
 tive validity which implies that there are objective 
 
KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 219 
 
 features exhibiting close analogies, by being products 
 of a fundamental sameness of conditions. This funda- 
 mental sameness is the universality of form which is 
 common to both the domain of the objective world 
 and the ideal realm of the mind, the thinking subject. 
 There are neither categories nor classes in the ob- 
 jective world, but the different modes of existence are 
 classified by sentient beings and the scheme of the 
 classification is the result. A reflexion upon our modes 
 of thought objectifies them as modes of existence. 
 The Platonic ideas, i. e. , the eternal types of the vari- 
 ous beings, do not possess a concrete existence as do, 
 e. g., the moulds of a potter, but there are uniformi- 
 ties among the living forms which are obviously ap- 
 parent. The doctrine of evolution proves that the 
 lines of division between the types of beings are not 
 so distinct in reality as they seem to be, and before a 
 strictly scientific inspection they fade away as imag- 
 inary ; yet they remain and are indispensable for our 
 method of classification ; and the unities which they 
 represent justify us in speaking of objective features 
 as corresponding to the mental conception of Platonic 
 ideas. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF GENERALISATIONS. 
 
 The sense-impressions of things are registered ac- 
 cording to their difference of form. Every sense-im- 
 pression runs along in the groove prepared for it by a 
 former sense-impression. Thus the same is registered 
 with the same, and similar ones are correlated. The 
 result is a systematisation of sensory impressions, and 
 the relations that obtain in this system which is built 
 up in the natural course of growth, may appropriately 
 be compared to the pigeon-holes of a methodically 
 
220 KANT'S philosophy. 
 
 arranged cabinet. The difference between the cabinet 
 with pigeon-holes and the human mind is this, that 
 the former is artificial, the latter natural. The human 
 mind with its rationality has been developed accord- 
 ing to mechanical law and the classification of sense- 
 impressions is done by it as automatically as the dis- 
 tribution of the different letters in a type-distributing 
 machine. 
 
 Our ideas, our names of things, our system of 
 classification is purely subjective, but there is an ob- 
 jective analogue of the eternal types, which consists 
 in the uniformities of all possible formations. This is 
 true of living creatures as well as of machines and 
 other concepts of human fancy. In the domain of 
 invention we know very well that the inventor some- 
 times .creates a combination of parts never actual- 
 ised before on earth ; but the inventor is a finder : he 
 is as much a discoverer as Columbus who found a 
 new continent, or the scientist who succeeds in formu- 
 lating an unknown law. America existed before Co- 
 lumbus, the law of gravitation held good before New- 
 ton, and the idea of a steam engine was a realisable 
 combination before James Watts. It is a feature of 
 objective existence that certain functions can be per- 
 formed in perfectly definite interrelations. Such con- 
 ditions which are actualised by a certain combination 
 and disappear as soon as the combination is destroyed, 
 are the objective features in things which justify the 
 subjective idea of unities finding expression in con- 
 cepts of things and beings. 
 
 THE IDEAS OF PURE REASON. 
 Kant grants the objective applicabihty of the cate- 
 gories but he denies the validity of the ideas of pure 
 
KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 221 
 
 reason, especially the cosmological, the psychological, 
 and the theological idea. We are unable to follow 
 Kant and are inclined to consider his three ideas of 
 Pure Reason in the same light as time and space and 
 the categories. The concept of unity is not a mere 
 assumption but it has its correspondent analogue in 
 reality' and has its practical use; only we must be- 
 ware of treating unities as concrete objectivities, as 
 separate and discrete entities, as things in themselves 
 which have an objective existence apart from and in- 
 dependently of their constituent parts. Thus the soul 
 of man is as real on the assumption of an ego entity 
 as on the theory of its denial. Life is as true whether 
 or not vitalism can be established. The world is a 
 great interrelated system, whether or not the uniform- 
 ities of nature are called laws. There is a creation 
 of the world, a formation of its life, a dispensation 
 of its destinies, taking place, whether or not this ulti- 
 mate norm of being be called God ; the facts of the 
 cosmic order remain the same on the assumptions of 
 both theism and atheism. But obviously, this deci- 
 sion is not an endorsement of Kant's antinomies, but 
 an explanation of his reasons for formulating them. 
 
 While we grant that there is a reality correspond- 
 ing to Kant's three ideas of pure reason, we do not 
 mean to say that there is a God such as the crude Re- 
 lief of an untrained mind represents him to be, nor 
 further that there is a soul such as it is assumed to 
 exist in the annals of superstition, nor finally that the 
 crude notions of a cosmos, the limits of the world or 
 its infinitude, its composition, its determinedness, and 
 
 IThus not only all organisms are unities, but also steam-engines, dy- 
 namos, or any machinery that would not work unless it were constructed of 
 interacting parts in a definite way. 
 
222 KANT'S philosophy. 
 
 its absolute existence should be such as abstract rea- 
 son might arbitrarily construct : we only mean to say 
 that there are factors in life which caused man to con- 
 struct such mental images or ideas as are called God, 
 soul, and world. The ideas may be wrong, but the 
 factors which produced them are real, and the duty 
 devolves upon theology, psychology, and cosmology 
 to eliminate error and bring out the truth. 
 
 My objection to Kant's doctrine is not an objection 
 to his terminology nor to idealism in general. We 
 may form our world-view in an idealistic as well as a 
 realistic nomenclature. Object may mean either the 
 sense-woven picture or the outside thing which it sig- 
 nifies. We may say that the objective world is ideal, 
 for such it is, meaning by objects the things as we see 
 them. We may say that the objective world is real, 
 meaning by objects the actual things represented in 
 our sense-images. The nomenclature of a philosoph- 
 ical system is important but it is arbitrary. We may 
 criticise it as impractical, but we cannot on its account 
 reject a philosophy as untrue. 
 
 REALISM OR IDETALISM. 
 
 We object to Kant's doctrine of limiting form to 
 the subject and thus denying the objective value of 
 the ideal. We may define terms as we please but we 
 must remain consistent. If the objects are ideal, I 
 gladly grant that the forms of the objects are ideal ; 
 but for all that, being forms of the objects, they are 
 objective, as much as the objects themselves. 
 
 The sense-woven pictures of things, though sub- 
 jective images, are the realities of life, and our con- 
 cepts of things are symbols of them in terms of their 
 formal features expressed according to schedules 
 
rant's philosophy. 223 
 
 which we construct a priori. Time and space, the 
 forms of our sense- world (of our Anschauung), accord- 
 ingly are as real as these things, and I cannot say that 
 the things themselves are real while the forms of 
 things are purely ideal, i. e., not real. 
 
 Schopenhauer, a one-sided but nevertheless one of 
 the most prominent and faithful disciples of Kant, de- 
 fends Kantian idealism against the misinterpretations 
 of the so-called realists in these sentences : 
 
 " In spite of all that one may say, nothing is so persistently 
 and ever anew misunderstood ^5 Idealism, because it is interpreted 
 as meaning that one denies the empirical reality of the external 
 world. Upon this rests the perpetual return to the appeal to com- 
 mon sense, which appears in many forms and guises ; for example, 
 as an ' irresistible conviction ' in the Scotch school, or as Jacobi's 
 faith in the reality of the external world. The external world by 
 no means presents itself, as Jacobi declares, upon credit, and is 
 accepted by us upon trust and faith. It presents itself as that 
 which it is, and performs directly what it promises. " ' 
 
 THE SUBJECT AS ITS OWN OBJECT. 
 
 The quarrel between the idealists so called and the 
 realists of Jacobi's stamp is purely a question of termi- 
 nology. It is a vicious circle to ask whether the real 
 is real; the question is, "What do we understand by 
 real ? " Now we agree with Kant in accepting An- 
 schauung as real. Our perceptions are the data of 
 experience, they are the facts of life about which there 
 is no quibbling and the question of unreality originates 
 only in the realm of abstract thought, viz., in the do- 
 main of interpretation. Perceptions are classified ; 
 perceptions of the same kind are subsumed under the 
 general conception of their class and if a perception 
 is misinterpreted, our notion concerning it is errone- 
 
 IFrom Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Idea, 
 
224 KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 ous. An after-image is as real as the original per- 
 ception, but it is called an illusion when it suggests 
 the presence of an object; in other words when its 
 cause is misinterpreted. 
 
 Perceptions accordingly are what we define as 
 real, and space and time are, abstractly stated, the 
 forms of perception. Time and space, accordingly, 
 are as real as perceptions. 
 
 Now we may ask what are the objects of the per- 
 ceptions, defining objects this time not as the sense- 
 woven images of our perception inside our senses, 
 but as the external presences which are supposed to 
 cause them. Since it is impossible here to enter into 
 a detailed epistemological discussion of the subject, 
 we state the answer for brevity's sake dogmatically as 
 follows: The objects (viz., the external presences 
 which are supposed to cause perceptions) are, ulti- 
 mately, i. e., in their inmost constitution, of the same 
 nature as are the perceptions themselves. The per- 
 ceptions in their totality are called the subject — which 
 is a sentient body, an intricate organism consisting 
 of different organs of sense and a superadded organ 
 of thought for preserving the sense-images, collating 
 them, classifying them, and interpreting them. We 
 are a system of perceptions and impulses, guided by 
 memories and , thoughts, but we represent ourselves 
 in our own perception as a body in time and space. 
 Thus our representation of ourselves is our self-per- 
 ception, i. e., a representation of the subject as its 
 own object, and our self-perception is as real as are 
 perceptions in general. Succession of sense-impres- 
 sions and reactions thereupon, accordingly, form part 
 and parcel of our subject as its own object ; and in the 
 same way, juxtaposition of organs is an attribute of 
 
kant's philosophy. 225 
 
 our self, not as it is as a subject in itself, but of our 
 self as it represents itself as its own object. Other 
 objects are in the same predicament and partake of 
 the same nature. If time and space are the forms of 
 the objectified subject, viz., of our own bodily exist- 
 ence we have good reasons to ascribe objectivity to 
 the facts from which the ideas of time and space are 
 derived, viz., to extension and succession. 
 
 THE OBJECTIVE ORIGIN OF SPACE AND TIME. 
 
 It is true that the factors which generate in the 
 mind our conceptions of time and space, together with 
 the entire formal aspect of being, lie in the subject, in 
 the sentient thinking being, but they lie not in the ab- 
 stract subject in itself, not in the subjectivity of the 
 subject, not in the quality of the subject which re- 
 mains when all other qualities, i. e., the objective 
 features of its own actualisation as a concrete being, 
 are omitted by the process of abstraction, i. e., when 
 they have been cancelled in thought. The subject in 
 itself will be found to be an empty generalisation 
 which contains nothing but a product of our analysis 
 of perception, the bare idea of the perceiving in con- 
 trast to the perceived. It contains nothing either a 
 priori or a posteriori ; merely itself, the shadow of a 
 thing. But the actual subject, which is an object in 
 the objective world, exists somewhere in space and in 
 a given time. It moves, i. e., it changes its position. 
 It consists of juxtaposed organs and its experiences 
 exhibit a definite succession, each act having its own 
 definite duration. Therefore we do not hesitate, when 
 drawing a line of demarcation between the subjective 
 and the objective features of the thinking subject, to 
 include its form together with its bodily objectivation 
 
226 rant's philosophy. 
 
 in the realm of objectivity. In this way it happens 
 that time and space may be called subjective, because 
 the objectified subject finds them a priori in itself, but 
 their ultimate root lies in the domain of objectivity, 
 and we can therefore just as well call them objective, 
 because they are the forms of the objective world and 
 originate in the subject only because it is an object 
 belonging to the objective world. 
 
 UNIVERSALITY DUE TO SYSTEMATISATION. 
 
 Kant was puzzled mainly by the subjective aprio- 
 rity of the laws of time and space and of all other for- 
 mal relations, but this puzzling apriority is, closely 
 considered, nothing but their general applicability to 
 all possible experience, which is due to the fact that 
 all formal relations admit of systematisation. Formal 
 possibilities can be exhausted and purely formal state- 
 ments apply to all pure forms. Hence they possess 
 universality, and universality admits of no exception, 
 hence it implies necessity, which involves a priori ap- 
 plicability. 
 
 It is true (as Kant says) that purely formal knowl- 
 edge is empty ; but we know at the same time that 
 the purely formal knowledge gives system to the em- 
 pirical, to the sense-given facts of our experience. If 
 we could not classify sense-impressions, they would 
 remain a useless chaos, and human reason would not 
 have developed. Kant expresses this truth by say- 
 ing that the sensory impressions without the guidance 
 of the purely formal are blind. 
 
 But as the formative norms of the objective world 
 shape things and make them such as they are, our 
 formal cognition classifies sense-impression according 
 to their forms and thus makes a knowledge of objects 
 
Kant's philosophy. 227 
 
 possible. Our formal cognition is not the cause of 
 the objective uniformities (as Kant suggests) but one 
 of their applications only, being, as it were, their own 
 reflexion in the consciousness of a sentient being. By 
 being systematised in the shape of formulas, they ap- 
 ply a priori to experience and become in this way a 
 key, with the help of which we can unlock the closed 
 doors of the mysteries of nature and decipher the 
 riddles of the universe. 
 
 THE REAL AND THE SUPERREAL. 
 
 We may call the eternal norms of existence which 
 condition the formation of things "being" or "San" 
 and the concrete actualisation of the types of being 
 their "becoming," Werden or Dasein. We become 
 acquainted with the norms of existence, part of which 
 ■ are formulated as natural laws, by abstraction and 
 generalisation, but for that reason they are not mere 
 glittering generalities, abstract nonentities, or unreal 
 inventions, but significant features of objective exist- 
 ence, depicting not accidental but necessary uniformi- 
 ties. While we concede that the world of becoming 
 is real, we must grant that the realm of being is super- 
 real. Both Sein and Werden, Being and Becoming, 
 are real ; but the reality of the two is different in kind. 
 The latter's reality is actualisation, the reality of the* 
 former is eternality. Thus the former is immutable, 
 the latter a perpetual flux. The fleeting realities of 
 sense are definite objects in the objective world, but 
 the norms of eternal being are the formative factors 
 which shape them. 
 
 Obviously the eternal norms of existence, which 
 are identical with the purely formal laws constituting 
 the cosmic order, though not material facts, are the 
 
228 kant's philosophy. 
 
 most efiective presences of the world. They are not 
 only real, they are superreal. They remain the same 
 whether realised or not in the actual world. They 
 produce the cosmic order, render the rise of rational 
 beings possible, they are the condition of the intelli- 
 gibility of things, they are the prototype of mind and 
 spirituality, they are the corner-stone of both science 
 and ethics and constitute Kant's mundus intelligibilis — 
 the realm of spiritual being ; Swedenborg's sphere of 
 spirits, of angels, and archangels; the kingdom of 
 God, to be realised on earth ; yea, God himself, for 
 God is all these norms in their totality and systematic 
 unity. In Lao-Tze's philosophy.it is the eternal Tao, 
 the world-reason or primordial Logos. In Buddhist 
 metaphysics it corresponds to Afvaghosha's Tatha- 
 gatagarbha, i. e., the womb of Buddhahood and the 
 origin of all things; to Amitsibha, the source of all 
 light and wisdom, and also to the deathless, the un- 
 create, the non-corporeal existence {arApd), the Nir- 
 vana of the older Buddhists. 
 
 NOUMENA. 
 
 The data of experience are sensations, or sense- 
 perceptions, which represent themselves as images of 
 things in time and space. The sensory element of 
 the images, which is conditioned by the material com- 
 position of the sentient subject, is purely subjective 
 and need not be uniform. Thus we know that colors 
 are perceived differently by different eyes ; the color- 
 blind see the world like a steel-engraving, or rather a 
 wash-picture, gray in gray. To the red-blind red ap- 
 pears green, to the green-blind red appears dark yel- 
 low and green pale yellow. If all men were color- 
 blind, the gray image would have to be regarded as 
 
Kant's philosophy. ^29 
 
 normal. The forms of things, too, are conditioned to. 
 some extent by the material composition of our sense- 
 organs, as much so as the picture on the sensitive 
 plate of a photographer's camera depends upon the 
 ,lens. Further, we see not things as they are, but as 
 they are projected according to the laws of perspec- 
 tive. But we can from the given data of the projected 
 images and additional considerations of other data of 
 experience reconstruct the .form and structure of 
 things as they are in space and of the events as they 
 and their accelerations take place in time. This con- 
 struction, of things is called in Kant's terminology 
 things as creations of thought, or noumena, and the 
 noumena are intended as models of the objects them- 
 selves, for they mean to depict things in their objec- 
 tive nature, as they are after the elimination of all 
 subjective elements of cognition. Accordingly nou- 
 mena (as noumena) are scientific notions, products 
 of reasoning, and subjective in a higher degree even 
 than sense-perceptions. They are the interpretations 
 of the sense- perceptions and are as such ideal, i. e., 
 representations not things. But they represent things 
 as they are, independent of the senses of the sentient 
 subject. Noumena would be unmeaning, if they did 
 not represent objective realities, if they were purely 
 fictitious, if they did not portray the things as objects 
 in the objective world. We may fitly call the realities 
 for whose designation noumena (i. e., scientific con- 
 cepts) have been invented objects, or more definitely, 
 objects in themselves. 
 
 Jhey constitute the realm of experience, and time 
 and space are the generalised modes of their existence 
 by which we determine their formal qualities. Noth- 
 ing is real in the sense of concrete existence, except 
 
230 rant's philosophy. 
 
 it be in time and space. Accordingly time and space 
 (though not objects but mere forms) are objective 
 qualities of things, and without time and space con- 
 crete things cease to be concretely real and become 
 either mere ideas or nonentities. 
 
 We may with Kant distinguish between thing and 
 thing in itself and may understand by the latter the 
 eternal foundation of the thing, its metaphysical raison 
 d'etre, whatever that may mean (either its Platonic 
 idea, its eternal type, or the Schopenhauerian con- 
 ception of its "will to be," or the general and abstract 
 idea of its existence), but under all conditions space 
 and time belong (as Kant says) to the things as ap- 
 pearances, viz., the things as objects in the objective 
 world which implies (the contrary to that which Kant 
 says) that they are not purely subjective, but objec- 
 tive. 
 
 THE OBJECTIVITY OF SPACE AND TIME. 
 
 Now we may call the perpetual flux of concrete 
 objects "appearance," and the domain of eternal being 
 ' ' the real things " : in that case the real things come to 
 appearance by becoming actual in time and space. In 
 this sense we agree with Kant, that time and space are 
 real for our experience, thpugh not for our experience 
 alone, but for any experience. Every sentient sub- 
 ject, in so far as it is sentient, every individual man, 
 is not a subject pure and simple, but an actualised 
 subject, an objectified thing, for all acts of cognition 
 are acts of an objective significance, taking place in 
 the domain of objective existence, as an interrelation 
 between two or several objects. One party to this 
 interrelation (viz., my bodily organisation) happens 
 to be the sentient and thinking subject, but that alters 
 
kant's philosophy. 231 
 
 nothing in the case, for all its actions take place in 
 time, and the concrete corporeality of its organs is 
 somewhere in space. Again therefore we come to the 
 conclusion that space and time appertain (as Kant 
 says) to the appearances of things. They appertain to 
 the subject, not in itself, but to the appearance of the 
 subject, viz., to its objectivation ; accordingly they are 
 (as opposed to what Kant says) objective, not purely 
 subjective, and may be called subjective only in a spe- 
 cial sense, viz., in so far as they appertain to the objec- 
 tified subject, which, however, is an object like any 
 other object in the objective world. The subject does 
 not transfer time and space into the objective world, 
 but anything that becomes actual thereby makes its 
 appearance in time and space. In other words. Time, 
 Space, and all the norms of purely formal relations, 
 are the forms of any possible concrete existence. 
 Whatever the metaphysical raison d'etre of things may 
 be, the "why there is anything," reality, when, ac- 
 tualised, represents itself objectively as being in time 
 and space. The thinking subject does not represent 
 things in time and space, but in so far as it is an actual 
 object in the objective world, it represents itself (i. e., 
 it appears) in time and space. So do all other things : 
 hence the concurrence of the formal notions of the 
 objectified subject with the formal conditions of the 
 objectified things of our surroundings. Kant says 
 
 (§520 = 
 
 "Space and time together with the appear- 
 ances in them are nothing existing in themselves 
 and outside of my representations but are them- 
 selves only modes of representation. " ^ 
 
 1 It is very strange that the same Kant who says that space (viz., exten- 
 sion) is only a mode of representation declares (in § 2) that the sentence 
 
232 kant's philosophy. 
 
 He should have said (and here we use purposely 
 Kant's own term " appearance " i) : 
 
 Time and space are modes of appearance, viz., 
 of self-representation. 
 
 Being modes of appearance they are inside every 
 subject in so far as it has made its appearance in the 
 objective world. They are in all objects as those re- 
 lational features which determine the juxtaposition 
 of things. It is the actualised appearance that needs 
 extension (i. e., space) for the distribution of the sev- 
 eral organs of the thinking subject. We feel our limbs 
 as being in different places, as moving about, as touch- 
 ing, as separating, etc., and these feelings are parts 
 of our soul : they are the inside of the subject which 
 is objectified (or comes to appearance) in our bodily 
 existence. Our body (viz., our self as appearance) is 
 extended, and the space, needed for it, is limited by 
 the skin. The remainder of extension which accomo- 
 dates the other objects of the surrounding world is 
 designated as the outside ; and if the extension within 
 our skin is real, the outside must also be real. Both 
 together constitute space. 
 
 "bodies are extended" is analytical; accordingly he regards extension or 
 space as the essential feature of a thing, of an object. Why then does he not 
 recognise Space as the mark of objectivism, which might have led him to 
 concede the objective nature of the operations of the thinking subject? 
 
 lAppearance or phenomenon means originally the picture of objects as 
 it appears on the retina and generally all the data of sense-perception ; but 
 the word is used in contrast to noumenon, or abstract thought, denoting the 
 concrete object as it is given to the senses distinguished from its general and 
 abstract idea. Thus, the world of appearances means the concrete world of 
 objects that affect our senses, though the term might be interpreted, to stand 
 for the retinal picture as a mere subjective image in contrast to the material 
 world of objective reality. Indeed, there are authors who do use the word in 
 the latter sense, while in the minds of most readers the two conceptions are 
 mixed and the former is imperceptibly affected by the latter. It would not be 
 difficult to point out what an interminable confusion the use of this word has 
 produced in philosophy. 
 
rant's philosophy. 233 
 
 When Kant denies that space and time are objec- 
 tive, he becomes confused and self-contradictory. For 
 he would either have to say that space and time are 
 limited within the boundary of the body of the think- 
 ing subject, which is nonsense, or he must attribute 
 them to the subject as a thing in itself, which contra- 
 dicts his own theory according to which time and 
 space do not refer to things in themselves, but to ap- 
 pearances only. Thus even from Kant's own premises 
 and when employing his own terminology the theory 
 becomes untenable that space and time are purely 
 subjective attributes. Their very nature is objectivity, 
 and if objects are appearances, time and space as the 
 forms of all appearance must be regarded as features 
 of existence which in their very nature are objective. 
 
 It appears that Kant was not sufficiently careful to 
 distinguish between space-conception, which is sub- 
 jective, and space itself, which, being the juxtaposi- 
 tion of things and their parts, is objective. Space- 
 conception originates from within sentient organisms, 
 viz., in the mind, by its adjustment to the surround- 
 ing world through the use of its organs. Its ultimate 
 sources are of a physiological nature consisting in the 
 motion of the limbs and especially the eyes. This is 
 what Ernst Mach calls physiological space.^ Mathe- 
 matical space is a higher abstraction than physiolo- 
 gical space. In mathematical space all incidental fea- 
 tures, the differences of right and left, of high and low, 
 etc., are dropped, and space is regarded as homa- 
 loidal, viz., as constituted alike throughout. The 
 homaloidality of space is the simplest way of depriv- 
 ing space of all positive attributes, of rendering it the 
 
 ISee Ernst Mach's article "On Physiological, as Distinguished from 
 Geometrical Space," in The Monist, Vol. XI., No. 3., April, 1901. 
 
234 kant's philosophy. 
 
 "same" throughout. At any rate it is a mental con- 
 struction as much as the idea of a straight line and all 
 geometrical figures. The construction has been made 
 without any concrete building material, with mere men- 
 tal operations, simply by proceeding on the assump- 
 tion of logical consistency, where the same procedure 
 yields the same result. That other space construc- 
 tions are possible need not concern us here. At any 
 rate, our space-conception is built up in the thinking 
 subject by operations of which it is possessed in its 
 capacity as an object moving about in the objective 
 world. Our space-conception is a noumenon (a pro- 
 duct of thought), and like all noumena, it is intended 
 to describe features of objective reality; and these 
 features of objective reality intended to be delineated 
 in our space-conception is objective space — viz., the 
 extension of the world and of its parts, the juxtaposi- 
 tion of bodies, and the range of directions all around 
 every moving point. 
 
 Our space-conception is subjective, but for that 
 reason space itself remains as objective as any object 
 in space. Moreover, the data from which our space- 
 conception has been constructed are as objective as 
 are all the acts and facts of our bodily organism. 
 
 THINGS IN THEMSELVES. 
 
 Where, then, are the things in themselves, which, 
 according to Kant, remain unintelligible ? 
 
 There is a truth in the idea that our mind is so 
 constituted as to transfer to the phenomenal world 
 its a priori notions of time and space and its thought- 
 forms. The world of our senses which appears to us 
 as the objective world that surrounds us, is truly a 
 construction of our organs of sense ; the construction 
 
kant's philosophy. 235 
 
 is as necessary as is for example the reflexion of a pic- 
 ture in a mirror ; things in themselves remain outside. 
 In this sense Kant's doctrine of idealism is undeniably 
 true. 
 
 But Kant goes further in saying that things in 
 themselves, meaning things viewed independently of 
 our sense-perception, do not partake of form and are 
 ■ therefore unknowable. But what is knowledge if not 
 a correct description of things? Things are mirrored 
 in our eyes, and abstract notions are formed to rep- 
 resent them in mental symbols. It would be absurd 
 to expect that things should bodily migrate into our 
 heads. 
 
 It is the ideal of science to eliminate the subjec- 
 tivity of the thinking subject and construct a world- 
 picture in terms of formal laws, by the guidance of 
 the several sciences of formal thought; this is the 
 noumenal world, the world of thought ; but this nou- 
 menal world is nothing but a picture (more or less ac- 
 curate) of the objective world as things are indepen- 
 dently of sense-perception. .Here everything changes 
 into motion of a definite form ; the rainbow with the 
 warm beauty of its colors becomes the reflexion of 
 ether waves of a definite angle with definite wave- 
 lengths. Though the noumenon is a subjective con- 
 struction, it is an analogue of the objects as they are 
 in themselves, describing their suchness. Accord- 
 ingly, this would be a cognition of things in them- 
 selves, for Kant defines things in themselves as the 
 ground which determines our sensibility to have sense- 
 perceptions, or briefly the causes of phenomena. 
 
 Cognition is nothing more nor less than the con- 
 struction of analogous symbols of things by which we 
 can know their nature for the sake of determining 
 
236 rant's philosophy. 
 
 their action, thus enabling us to direct the course of 
 events by adaptation partly of ourselves to conditions, 
 partly of our surroundings to our wants. Unless we 
 denounce science as a vagary of the human mind, we 
 must grant thaf in spite of the shortcomings of the 
 individual scientist, the ideal of science (which con- 
 sists in describing things in their objective existence) 
 is justified, and can be more and more realised. 
 
 And what becomes of things in themselves? 
 
 If things in themselves cannot be described with 
 the assistance of formal thoughts, they degenerate 
 into dim chimerical and contradictory notions, such 
 as unextended bodies, or substances without quali- 
 ties, or unmaterial entities, or causes which remain 
 outside the pale of causation. 
 
 The conception of things in themselves is a vagary 
 of pre-Kantian metaphysics, the empty shell of which, 
 as an irrational quantity, transcendent and unknow- 
 able, was by some mishap suffered to remain in Kant's 
 philosophy. 
 
 If things in themselves mean objective things, 
 viz., things as they are, independently of our sensi- 
 bility, we must deny, that they are unknowable. If 
 they mean that which constitutes the essential char- 
 acter of the things, making them what they are, they 
 will be seen to be determined by their suchness ; they 
 are what Plato called the eternal types of being, or 
 ideas; and we ought to call them not "things in 
 themselves," but "forms in themselves." 
 
 Schopenhauer interprets the Kantian conception 
 of things in themselves as the metaphysical raison 
 d^etre of their existence, but he denies that its nature 
 cannot be known and discovers its manifestation in 
 "the Will." According to him it is the Will that 
 
kant's philosophy. 237 
 
 makes every one what he is, and Schopenhauer's Will 
 is not the physiological process of willing, the con- 
 scious effort of causing an idea to pass into an act, but 
 the tendency to motion such as it inheres in all exist- 
 ence, in the stone as gravity, in chemicals as affinity, 
 in sentient beings as desire. He expressly excludes 
 that feature which distinguishes will from unconscious 
 motions, viz., intelligence, and speaks of the blind 
 Will. The blind Will is practically deified by him, 
 for it is supposed to be above time and space and 
 credited with creative omnipotence. In reality it is 
 nothing but the widest generalisation of motion. 
 
 Clifford offers another interpretation of the terni 
 '•thing in itself," viz., the sentiency of organised be-, 
 ings, constituting their subjectivity and corresponding 
 to what in man is called his "soul." But, again, this 
 subjectivity, the spiritual inside, is always the sentient 
 accompaniment of the organisation, the bodily out- 
 side ; and its nature can be determined by studying 
 the visible exponents of its objective expression in 
 which it is realised. Thus Clifford's things in them- 
 selves are as little unknowable as Schopenhauer's. 
 
 Agnosticism, the egg-shell of metaphysicism, pre- 
 vented Rant from taking the last step suggested by 
 his doctrine of the necessity and universality of the 
 laws of pure form. He lost himself in contradictions 
 and became satisfied with his statement of the antino- 
 mies of pure reason, according to which we may prove 
 with equal plausibility that God exists or that he does 
 not. 
 
 THE GOD PROBLEM. 
 
 If Kant had followed the course which we here, 
 under the guidance of the principles laid out by him, 
 
238 KANT'S PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 have briefly sketched out, his philosophy not only 
 would have become less artificial and remained in 
 close touch with the natural sciences, but it would 
 also have helped theology to develop purer, truer, 
 and nobler religious ideals. With the egg-shell of 
 agnosticism on its back, Kantism was satisfied with 
 the existing state of beliefs and things ; not that Kant 
 endorsed the various irrationalities of the Christianity 
 of his day, the literalism of dogma, the implicit belief 
 in the very text of the Bible, the Creation story, pa- 
 ternalism of the Prussian State Church, etc. ; he criti- 
 cised them occasionally in mild terms ; but instead of 
 going to work to purify religion (not in the narrow 
 and prosaic spirit of his disciples, the Rationalists, 
 but with due reverence for the poetry of dogma and 
 legend, and at the same time with a consideration for 
 the practical needs of the heart): he simply justified 
 them in general terms on account of their moral use- 
 fulness in his Critique of Practical Reason. 
 
 As an instance, let us point out his unsatisfactory 
 solution of the God problem. 
 
 Kant accepted in his conception of God the tradi- 
 tional views of the Church, and discussed it as one of 
 the several metaphysical notions, the result being that 
 the idea is pronounced to be transcendent, and we 
 can with equally plausible reasons both affirm and 
 deny his existence. It is one of Kant's four antino- 
 mies of Pure Reason. But God unknown to pure 
 reason and not discoverable in the domain of experi- 
 ence and resuscitated only as a postulate of practical 
 reason is a poor substitute even for the mythological 
 conception of the god of the uneducated masses. An 
 hypothetical go^ cannot help; he is sicklied over 
 with the pale cast of thought ; he is hot real ; he is 
 
rant's philosophy. 239 
 
 paralysed. I am far from blaming Kant, who has 
 done so much for philosophy, for not having done 
 more and performed a reformer's work for religion ; 
 but I would suggest that he might as well from his 
 own principles have investigated the nature of formal 
 laws, which in the subjective sphere of reason appear 
 as transcendental ideas, and have come to the conclu- 
 sion that a truer God-conception could be derived 
 therefrom, which then would commend itself as the 
 higher ideal. The popular notions of the several re- 
 ligions and also of a primitive theology are dim fore- 
 shadowings of a scientific God-conception, the purity 
 of which is increasing with the progress of scientific 
 truth. 
 
 The world-order, that purely formal law in the 
 objective world whic^i forms and creates, shaping the 
 stellar universe (as Kant set forth so forcibly in his 
 General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens), 
 and revealing itself in the social development of man 
 as the power that makes for righteousness, must have 
 made its influence felt in the life of mankind at the 
 very beginning, and would naturally, according to the 
 practical needs of the intelligence of the successive 
 ages, assume the shape of a conception of God, more 
 or less crude in the beginning, and more or less phil- 
 osophical in the mind of the wise. The world-order, 
 this superpersonal spirituality that acts as the divine 
 dispensation in the world, is hyperphysical (I pur- 
 posely avoid the much-abused term "supernatural," 
 but I might as well say supernatural). It is intrinsi- 
 calljr necessary, it is omnipresent, it is unerring in the 
 truth of its various applications which form as it were 
 a grand system, comparable to the articulated differ- 
 entiation of a spiritual organism, — a personality; it 
 
240 kant's philosophy. 
 
 is as unfailingly just as the law of causation is rigid ; 
 and every God-conception is but an attempt at com- 
 prehending its moral significance. 
 
 The fetishist's notion of a power to which he must 
 conform is not absolutely wrong. It contains a truth, 
 but is alloyed with superstitions. The idea of think- 
 ing of God as a king of kings, as a supreme judge, is 
 more advanced, inasmuch as God henceforth repre- 
 sents a moral maxim, the principle of justice in the 
 world. The God-father idea of Christianity surpasses 
 the theology of the prophets of the Old Testament, 
 but it, too, falls short of the truth in all its perfection. 
 All we have to do is to be serious in scientifically 
 thinking the divine attributes of omnipresence, of 
 eternality, of infinitude, of omniscience, of all-justice, 
 of the irrefragability of law in the physical, the psy- 
 chical, and the social spheres of existence, which, re- 
 flected in the instructive growth of his conscience, 
 become to man the moral norm of life, and the ulti- 
 mate authority of conduct. 
 
 Kant cited the religious notions of the theology of 
 his age before the tribunal of pure reason and dis- 
 missed the suit as offering no issue, leaving the ques- 
 tion in the state in which he had found it. He would 
 have served his age better had. he worked out the 
 philosophical significance of the idea of God, on the 
 basis of the practical significance of his Transcenden- 
 talism ; he would then, instead of leaving the problem 
 unsolved, have boldly propounded the gospel of the 
 superpersonal God as coming, not to destroy the old 
 theology, but to fulfil its yearnings and hopes, with- 
 out in the least doing violence to the demands of crit- 
 icism and scientific exactness. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS FOR 
 
 THE STUDY OF KANT'S LIFE 
 
 AND PHILOSOPHY. 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 THESE materials, culled from Kantian literature, are intended 
 as specimens of the various opinions which prevail concern- 
 ing Kant, and have been arranged and added to this book for the 
 purpose of enabling the student to study Kant in the impressions 
 ■which he made upon the philosophical public. The selection has 
 at the same time been offered with the intention of giving a 
 brief synopsis of Kant's work, at least so far as the systematic con- 
 struction, or Ausbau, of his transcendental criticism is concerned. 
 It is understood that Kant's merits as a thinker and inquirer are not 
 limited to metaphysics, but it would have led us too far, and would 
 have swelled the book to too bulky a size, without doing justice to 
 the subject, if we had also attempted to consider here Kant's re- 
 searches in physics, mechanics, astronomy, and the other natural 
 sciences. That Kant had a clear idea, not only of evolution and of 
 the descent of man from lower forms of life, but also of the dif- 
 ficulties of the evolution theory, is well attested by many remark- 
 able passages, collected by Fritz Schultze'. 
 
 We have only to add that we have selected Windelband as a 
 representative historian of philosophy, in preference, say, to Erd- 
 mann and Ueberweg, solely because of the terseness of his state- 
 ments. Schwegler is a Hegelian, Weber an Alsatian under French 
 influence. Lange represents the large class' of agnostics who grant 
 that materialism is untenable as a philosophy but deem it to be 
 the best working hypothesis in science. Schopenhauer is one of 
 the most original disciples of Kant, and set up a philosophy of his 
 own, conceiving the world under the double aspect of Will and 
 Idea. He hates Hegel and all ' ' school-philosophy, '' saying that he 
 himself, the true philosopher, lives for philosophy, while the pro- 
 fessors appointed to teach philosophy live on philosophy. Heine 
 
 IJCani und Darwin, e£n Beiirag ziir Geschichte der Entinickelungslehre 
 Jena, 1873. 
 
244 kant's life and philosophy. 
 
 is peculiarly interesting, being brilliant and cynical at the same 
 time. He speaks sometimes as if he were an atheist, and again 
 advocates a theism verging on pantheism. Theodore F. Wright's 
 digest of Stiickenberg is cavilling and spiteful. His is the most 
 unfavorable vievf of Kant, and we quote it on that account. Paul- 
 sen's chronological table will be welcome as a useful synopsis of 
 the data of Kant's life. f. c. 
 
KANT'S LIFE AND WRITINGS. 
 (after winde'lband.') 
 
 IMMANUEL KANT was born April 2Z, 1724, at Konigsberg, 
 Prussia, the son of a saddler. He was educated at the Pietistic 
 Collegium Fridericianum, and attended in 1740 the University of 
 his native city to study theology ; but subjects of natural science 
 and philosophy gradually attracted him. After concluding his 
 studies, he became a private teacher in various families in the 
 vicinity of KQnigsberg from 1746 to 1755 ; in the autumn of 1755 he 
 habilitated as Privatdocent in the philosophical faculty of Konigs- 
 berg University, and was made full Professor there in 1770. The 
 cheerful, brilliant animation, and versatility of his middle years 
 gave place with time to an earnest, rigorous conception of life and 
 to the control of a strict consciousness of duty, which manifested 
 itself in his unremitting labour upon his great philosophical task, 
 in his masterful fulfilment of the duties of his academic profession, 
 and in the inflexible rectitude of his life, which was not without 
 a shade of the pedantic. The uniform course of his solitary and 
 modest scholar's life was not disturbed by the brilliancy of the 
 fame that fell upon his life's evening, and only transiently by the 
 dark shadow that the hatred of orthodoxy, which had obtained 
 control under Frederick William II. , threatened to cast upon his 
 path by a prohibition of bis philosophy. He died from the weak- 
 ness of old age on the izth of February, 1804. 
 
 Kant's middle and later life and personality has been drawn 
 most completely by Kuno Fischer ( Geschichte der neueren Philo- 
 soj>hie. III. and IV., 3d ed., Munich, 1882); E. Arnoldt has treated 
 of his youth and the first part of his activity as a teacher (Konigs- 
 berg, 1882). See also J. H. W. Stuckenberg, Life of Kant (Lon- 
 don, 1882). 
 
 IHistory of Philosophy. Translated from the German by James H. Tufts, 
 New York : Macmillan, 1893. Price 15. 00. This work is especially valuable as 
 a comparative treatment of the history ol thought. 
 
246 kant's life and philosophy. 
 
 The change which was taking place in the philosopher toward 
 the end of the seventh decade of the eighteenth century appears 
 especially in his activity as a writer. His earlier " pre-critical " 
 works are distinguished by easy-flowing, graceful presentation, 
 and present themselves as admirable occasional writings of a man 
 .of fine thought who is well versed in the world. His later works 
 show the laboriousness of his thought and the pressure of the con- 
 tending motifs, both in the form of the investigation, with its cir- 
 cumstantial heaviness and artificial architectonic structure, and in 
 the formation of his sentences, which are highly involved, and 
 frequently interrupted by restriction. Minerva frightened away 
 the graces ; but instead, the devout tone of deep thought and 
 earnest conviction, which here and there rises to powerful pathos 
 and weighty expression, hovers over his later writings. 
 
 For Kant's theoretical development, the antithesis between the 
 Leibnizo-Wolffian metaphysics and the Newtonian natural philos- 
 ophy was at the beginning of decisive importance. The former 
 had been brought to his attention at the University by Knutzen, 
 the latter by Teske, and in his growing alienation from the philo- 
 sophical school-system, his interest for natural science, to which 
 for the time he seemed to desire to devote himself entirely, co- 
 operated strongly. His first treatise, 1747, was entitled Thoughts 
 u;pon the True Measure of Vis Viva, a controverted question be- 
 tween Cartesian and Leibnizian physicists ; his great work upon 
 the General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens was a 
 natural science production of the first rank, and besides small 
 articles, his promotion-treatise, De Igne (1755), which propounded 
 a hypothesis as to imponderables, belongs here. His activity as a 
 teacher also showed, even on into his later period, a preference for 
 the subjects of natural sciences, especially for physical geography 
 and anthropology. 
 
 In theoretical philosophy Kant passed through many reversals 
 (mancherlei Umkifpungen) of his standpoint. At the beginning 
 (in the Physical Monadology) he had sought to adjust the opposi- 
 tion between Leibniz and Newton, in their doctrine of space, by 
 the ordinary distinction of things-in-themselves (which are to be 
 known metaphysically), and phenomena, or things as they appear 
 (which are to be investigated physically) ; he then (in the writings 
 after 1760) attained to the insight that a metaphysics in the sense 
 of rationalism is impossible, that philosophy and mathematics must 
 have diametrically opposed methods, and that philosophy as the 
 
KANT'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY. 247 
 
 empirical knowledge of the given cannot step beyond the circle of 
 experience. But while he allowed himself to be comforted by 
 Voltaire and Rousseau for this falling away of metaphysical in- 
 sight, through the instrumentality of the "natural feeling" for the 
 right and holy, he was still working with Lambert at an improve- 
 ment of the method of metaphysics, and when he found this, as he 
 hoped, by the aid of Leibniz's Nouveaux Essais, he constructed 
 in bold lines the mystico-dogmatic system of his Inaugural Dis- 
 sertation. 
 
 The progress from this point to the System of Criticism is 
 obscure and controverted. For this development, and for the time 
 in which he was influenced by Hume, as well as for the direction 
 which that influence took, consult the following works : Fr. Michelis, 
 Kant vor und nach lyyo (Braunsberg, 1871) ; Fr. Paulsen, Ver- 
 such einer Entivictdungsgeschichte der JCantischen Erkennt- 
 nisstheorie (L,ei-psic, 1875); A. Riehl, Geschichte und Methode des 
 fhiloso^hischen Kriticismus (Leips. 1876) ; B. Erdmann, Kant's 
 Kriticismus (Leips. 1878) ; W. Windelband, Die verschiedenen 
 Phasen der Kantischen Lehre vom Ding-an-sich ( Vierteljahrs- 
 schrift far ivissensctiaftliche Philoso^hie, 1876). Cf. also the 
 writings by K. Dieterich on Kant's relation to Newton and Rous- 
 seau under the title Die Kantische Philoso^hie in ihrer inneren 
 Entwicklungsgeschichte , Freiburg i. B. 1885 ; also A. Wreschner, 
 Ernst Plainer und Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Leipsic, 
 1893) ; E. Adickes, Kant-Studien (Kiel and Leipsic, 1895) ; F. 
 Paulsen, Immanuel Kant (Stuttgart, 1898). For Kant on Evolu- 
 tion, see P. Cams, Kant and S;pencer (Chicago, 1900). 
 
 From the adjustment of the various tendencies of Kant's 
 thought proceeded the "Doomsday-book" of German philosophy, 
 the Critique of Pure Reason (Riga, 1781). It received a series of 
 changes in the second edition (1787), and these became the objec, 
 of very vigorous controversies after attention had been called to 
 them by Schelling (W., V. 196) and Jacobi (W., II. 291). Cf. con- 
 cerning this, the writings cited above. H. Vaihinger, Commentar 
 zu Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Vol. I. , Stuttgart, 1887, 
 Vol. II., 1892), has diligently collected the literature. Separate 
 editions of the Kritik, by K. Kehrbach, upon the basis of the first 
 edition, and by B. Erdmann and E. Adickes upon the basis of the 
 second edition, have been published. 
 
 There is an English translation of the Critique (2d ed.), by 
 Meiklejohn, in the Bohn Library, and also one by Max MuUer 
 
248 kant's life; and philosophy. 
 
 (text of ist ed. with supplements giving changes of 2d ed.), Lond. 
 1881. We have further a Paraphrase and Commentary by Mahaffy 
 and Bernard, 2d ed., Lond. and N. Y. 1889; and partial transla- 
 tions in J. H. Stirling's Text-book to Kant, and in Watson's Selec- 
 tions, Lond. and N. Y. 1888. This last contains also extracts from 
 the ethical wrritings and from the Critique of Judgment. 
 
 The additional main writings of Kant in his critical period are : 
 Prolegomena zu einer jeden htinftigen Meta;physiJi, 1783; Grund- 
 legung zur Metafhysik der Sitten, 1783 ; Metafhysische An- 
 fangsgrilnde der Naturivissenschaft, 1783 ; Kritik der frah- 
 tischen Vernunft, 1788; Kritik der Urtfieilskraft, 1790; Die 
 Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, 1793; 
 Zum eTJuigen Frieden, 1793 ; Metafhysische AnfangsgrUnde 
 der Rechts- und Tugendlehre, 1797 ; Der Streit der Fakultaten, 
 1798. There is an English translation of the Prolegomena, by 
 Mahaffy and Bernard, Lond. and N. Y., 1889 ; of the Prolegomena 
 and Metaphysical Foundation of Natural Science, by Bax, Bohn 
 Library ; of the ethical writings, including the first part of the 
 Religion tvithin the Bounds of Pure Reason, by T. K. Abbott, 
 4th ed., Lond. 1889; of the Critique of Judgment, by J. H. 
 Bernard, Lond. and N. Y. 1892 ; of ^& Philosophy of Law , by W. 
 Hastie, Edin. 1887 ; Principles of Politics, including the essay on 
 Perpetual Peace, by W. Hastie, Edin. 1891 ; of Kant's Inaugural 
 Dissertation, W. J. Eckoff, (New York, 1894). The contents of 
 Kant's Essays and Treatises, 2 vols., Lond. 1798, is given in 
 Ueberweg, II. 138 (Eng. tr.). 
 
 Complete editions of his works have been prepared by K. 
 Rosenkranz and F. W. Schubert (12 vols., Leips. 1833 ff.) ; by G. 
 Hartenstein (10 vols., Leips. 1838 f. ; more recently 8 vols., Leips. 
 1867 £f.); and by J. v. Kirchmann (in the Philos. Biblioth.). They 
 contain, besides his smaller articles, etc., his lectures upon logic, 
 pedagogy, etc. , and his letters. A survey of all that has been writ- 
 ten by Kant (including also the manuscript of the Transition 
 from Metaphysics to Physics, which is without value for the inter- 
 pretation of his critical system) is found in Ueberweg-Heinze, III, 
 § 24 ; there, too, the voluminous literature is cited with great com- 
 pleteness. Of this we can give here only a choice of the best and 
 most instructive ; a survey of the more valuable literature, ar- 
 ranged according to its material, is offered by the article Kant, by 
 W. Windelband in Ersch und Gruber's Enc. The journal of 
 Speculative Philosophy contains numerous articles upon Kant. 
 
KANT'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY. 249 
 
 We may mention also Adamson, The PhilosofJiy of Kant, Edin, 
 1879 ; art. Kant, in Enc. Brit. , by the same author ; arts, in Mind, 
 Vol. VI., by J. Watson, and in Philos. Review, 1893, by J. G. 
 Schurmann. — E. Adickes has published an exhaustive bibliography 
 of the German literature in the Philos. Review, 1893 ff. 
 
THE CRITIQUE OF PRACTICAL REASON, 
 AND THE CRITIQUE OF JUDGMENT. 
 
 (after WEBER.') 
 I. THE CRITIQUE OF PRACTICAL REASON.* 
 
 ALTHOUGH the Critique of Pure Reason reduces us to a 
 scepticism which is all the more absolute because it is rea- 
 soned, proved, cientifically established, and legitimised, it would be 
 a grave mistake to consider the sage of Koenigsberg as a sceptic in 
 the traditional sense, and to impute to him a weakness for the mate- 
 rialism of his age. Scepticism is the upshot of the Critique of Pure 
 Reason; it is not, however, the ultimatum of Kantianism. To assert 
 the contrary is completely to misunderstand the spirit of the 
 philosophy of Kant and the final purpose of his critique. This is 
 by no means hostile to the moral faith and its transcendent object, 
 but wholly in its favor. It is, undoubtedly, not Kant's intention to 
 "humiliate" reason, as TertuUian and Pascal had desired to do, 
 but to assign to it its proper place among all our faculties, its true 
 r61e in the complicated play of our spiritual life. Now, this place 
 is, according to Kant, a subordinate one ; this function is re- 
 gulative and modifying, not constitutive and creative. The Will, 
 and not reason, forms the basis of our faculties and of things. 
 that is the leading thought of Kantian philosophy. While reason 
 becomes entangled in inevitalble antinomies and involves us in 
 doubts, the will is the ally of faith, the source, and therefore, the 
 natural guardian of our moral and religious beliefs. Observe that 
 
 "i-VroTaWeher^s History of Pkilosophy, Translated by Frank Thilly. New 
 York : Scribner*s. Price, 83.30. Weber's book is one of the clearest, con- 
 cisest, and most readable of the histories of philosophies, 
 
 2H. Cohen, Kant's Begrilndung der Ethik, Berlin, 1877; E. Zeller, Ueher 
 das Kantische Moralprincip, Berlin, 1880; J. G. Schurman, Kantian Ethics 
 and the Ethics of Evolution, London, 1881; N. Vorier, Kant's Ethics, Chicago, 
 1886; F. W. FQrster, Der Entuuickelungsgang der Kantischen Ethik, etc., Ber- 
 lin, 1894; Piinjer, Die Religionslehre Kant's, Jena, 1874. 
 
KANT S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY. 25I 
 
 Kant in no wise denies the existence of the thing-in-itself , of the 
 soul, and of God, but only the possibility of proving the reality of 
 these Ideas, by means of reasoning. True, he combats spirit- 
 ualistic dogmatism, but the same blow that brings it down over- 
 throws materialism ; and though he attacks theism, he likewise de- 
 molishes the dogmatic pretensions of the atheists. What he combats 
 to the utmost and pitilessly destroys is the dogmatism of theoretical 
 reason, under whatever form it may present itself, whether as 
 theism or atheism, spiritualism or materialism ; is its assumption 
 of authority in the system of our faculties ; is the prejudice which 
 attributes metaphysical capacity to the understanding, isolated 
 from the Tvill and defending' on its ozun resources. By way of 
 retaliation— an(l here he reveals the depth of his philosophic faith 
 — he concedes a certain metaphysical capacity io practical reason, 
 i. e,, to Tvill. 
 
 Like the understanding, the will has its own character, its 
 original forms, its particular legislation, a legislation which Kant 
 calls "practical reason." In this new domain, the problems raised 
 by the Critique of Pure Reason change in aspect ; doubts are dis- 
 sipated, and uncertainties give way to practical certainty. The 
 moral law differs essentially from physical law, as conceived by 
 theoretical reason. Physical law is irresistible and inexorable ; 
 the moral law does not compel, but bind ; hence it implies free- 
 dom. Though freedom cannot be proved theoretically, it is not in 
 the least doubtful to the will : it is a postulate of practical reason, 
 an immediate fact of the moral consciousness.' 
 
 Here arises one of the great difficulties with which philosophy 
 is confronted : How can we reconcile the postulate of practical rea- 
 son with the axiom of pure reason that every occurrence in the 
 phenomenal order is a necessary effect, that the phenomenal world 
 is governed by an absolute determinism? Kant, whose belief in 
 free-will is no less ardent than his love of truth, cannot admit an 
 absolute incompatibility between natural necessity and moral 
 liberty. The conflict of reason and conscience, regarding freedom, 
 can only be a seeming one ; it must be possible to resolve the an- 
 tinomy without violating the rights of the intelligence or those of 
 the will. 
 
 The solution would, undoubtedly, be impossible, if the Cri- 
 tique of Pure Reason absolutely denied liberty, but the fact is, it 
 
 1 Gnindlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, p. 80 (Rosenkranz) ; Kritik <Ur 
 praktiscken Vernun/t, p. 274. 
 
252 KANT'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY, 
 
 exclades freedom from the phenomenal sphere only, and not from 
 the intelligible and transcendent world, which exists behind the 
 phenomenon, though it is unknowable. Theoretical reason de- 
 clares : Freedom, though impossible in the phenomenal world, is 
 possible in the absolute order ; it is conceived as a noumenon ; it 
 is intelligible ; and practical reason adds : it is certain. Hence, 
 there is no real contradiction between the faculty of knowledge 
 and of will. Our acts are determined, in so far as they occur in 
 time and in space, indetermined and free, in so far as the source 
 whence they spring, our intelligible character, is independent of 
 these two forms of sensibility.' 
 
 This would not be a solution if time and space were objective 
 realities, as dogmatic philosophy conceives them. From that 
 point of view, Spinoza is right in denying freedom. However, as 
 soon as we agree with criticism, that space and, above all, lime are 
 modes of seeing things, and do not afiect the things themselves, 
 determinism is reduced to a mere theory or general conception of 
 things, a theory or conception which reason cannot repudiate with- 
 out abdicating, but which by no means expresses their real es- 
 sence. 
 
 The Kantian solution of the problem of freedom at first sight 
 provokes a very serious objection. If the soul, as intelligible 
 character, does not exist in time, if it is not a phenomenon, we 
 can no longer subsume it under the category of causality, since the 
 categories apply only to phenomena and not to "noumena.' 
 Hence it ceases to be a cause and a free cause. Nor can we apply 
 to it the category of unity. Hence it ceases to be an individual 
 apart from other individuals : it is identified with the universal, 
 the eternal, and the infinite. Fichte, therefore, consistently de- 
 duces his doctrine of the absolute ego from Kantian premises. 
 Our philosopher, however, does not seem to have the slightest 
 suspicion that this is the logical conclusion of this theory. Nay, 
 he postulates, always in the name of practical reason, individual 
 immortality' as a necessary condition of the solution of the moral 
 problem, and the existence of a God' apart from the intelligible 
 ego, as the highest guarantee of the moral order and the ultimate 
 triumph of the good. It is true, Kant's theology is merely an ap- 
 pendix to his ethics, and is not to be taken very seriously. It is 
 
 1 Kritik der praktischen Vernun/i, pp. 225 ff. 
 ^ Kriiik der praktischen Vernun/i, p. a6i. 
 »Id., p. 264. 
 
kant's life and philosophy. 253 
 
 no longer, as in the Middle Ages, the queen of the sciences, but 
 the humble servant of independent ethics. This personal God, 
 afterwards postulated by the Critique of Practical Reason, forcibly 
 reminds us of the celebrated epigram of a contemporary of our 
 philosopher: "If there were no God, we should have to invent 
 one." 
 
 The real God of Kant is Freedom in the service of the ideal, 
 or the good Will (der gute WiUejy 
 
 His conviction in this matter is most clearly expressed by 
 the doctrine of the frimacy of practical reason,^ i. e., of the 
 will? Theoretical reason and practical reason, though not directly 
 contradicting each other, are slightly at variance as the most im- 
 portant questions of ethics and religion, the former tending to con- 
 ceive liberty, God, and the absolute as ideals having no demon- 
 strable objective existence, the latter a£Srming the reality of the 
 autonomous soul, responsibility, immortality, and the Supreme 
 Being. The consequences of this dualism would be disastrous if 
 theoretical reason and practical reason were of equal rank ; and 
 they would be still more disastrous, were the latter subordinated 
 to the former. But the authority of practical reason is superior to 
 that of theoretical reason, and in real life the former predominates. 
 Hence we should, in any case, act as if it Tvere ^oved that we 
 are free, that the soul is immortal, that there is a supreme judge 
 and rewarder. 
 
 In certain respects, the dualism of understanding and will is a 
 happy circumstance. If the realities of religion, God, freedom, 
 and the immortality of the soul, were self-evident truths, or 
 capable of theoretical proof, we should do the good for the sake of 
 future reward, our will would cease to be autonomous, our acts 
 would no longer be strictly moral ; for every other motive except 
 the categorical imperative of conscience and the respect which it 
 inspires, be it friendship or even the love of God, renders the will 
 heteronomous, and deprives its acts of their ethical character. 
 Moreover, religion is true only when completely identical with 
 morality. Religion within the bounds of reason consists in morality, 
 nothing more nor less. The essence of Christianity is eternal 
 
 1 Grundlegung zur Metapkysik der Sitten, p. 11 : Es isi uberaU nickts in 
 der Welt, j a uherhaupt auch ausser derselben zu denken tnoglich, was ohne Ein- 
 schr&nkungfur gut kSnnie gehalten werden, als aUein tin Guter Wills. 
 
 ^ Kritik der praktischen yern«n/i,p, 258. 
 
 Sid., pp. 105 S. 
 
254 kant's life and philosophy. 
 
 morality ; the goal of the church is the triumph of right in human- 
 ity. When thp church aims at a different goal, it loses its raison 
 d'etre} 
 
 II. CRITIQUE OF JUDGMENT.* 
 
 While the Critique of Practical Reason, with its categorical 
 imperative, its primacy of the conscience, and its absolute inde- 
 pendence of morality, satisfies Kant's moral feeling and his great 
 love of liberty, which had been shaken by the conclusions of the 
 Critique of Pure Reason, the philosophical instinct reasserts it- 
 self in his aesthetics and teleology, which form the subject-matter 
 of his Critique of Judgment. We have seen how, in the Critique 
 of Pure Reason, he universally combines synthesis with analysis, 
 how he solders together the heterogeneous parts of the cognitive 
 apparatus : between the functions of sensibility and those of reason 
 he discovers the intermediate function of the idea of time, which 
 is half intuition, half category ; between a priori concepts which 
 are diametrically opposed, he inserts intermediary categories. The 
 same synthetic impulse leads him, in his Critique of Judgment, 
 to bridge over the chasm which separates theoretical reason and 
 the conscience.' 
 
 The sesthetical and teleological sense is an intermediate faculty, 
 a connecting link between the understanding and the will. Truth 
 is the object of the understanding, nature and natural necessity its 
 subject-matter. The will strives for the good ; it deals with free- 
 dom. The sesthetical and teleological sense (or judgment in the 
 narrow sense of the term) is concerned with what lies between the 
 true and the good, between nature and liberty : we mean the 
 
 1 Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der hlossen Vernunft, pp. 130 ff . ; 205 
 ff. — The independent morality of the Socialist P. J. Proudlion (i8ag — 1865) is 
 grounded on these principles. It is based on the following proposition: 
 " Morality must cease to lean on theology for support, it must free itself from 
 all so-called revealed dogmas, and base itself solely on conscience and the 
 innate principle of justice, without requiring the support of the belief in God 
 and the immortality of the soul." This doctrine of Proudhon has been re- 
 produced and popularized by a weekly journal, the '^Morale indipendante," 
 edited by Massol, Morin and Coignet (1895 £f.}, 
 
 2[A. Stadler, Kant's Teleologie, etc., Berlin, 1874; H. Cohen, ir<i»<'i5«- 
 grilndung der Aestketik, Berlin, rSSg ; J. Goldfriedrich, Kant's Aesthetik, 
 Leipsic, 1895 ; J. H. Tufts, The Sources and Development q^ Kant's Teleology^ 
 Chicago, 1892.] 
 
 iKritik der Urtheilskrafi, p. 14. 
 
rant's life and PHiLosopHy. 255 
 
 beautiful and the purposive. Kant calls it judgment because of 
 the analogy between its manifestations and what is called judg- 
 ment in logic, like the judgment, the sense of the beautiful and the 
 teleological establishes a relation between two things which as 
 such have nothing in common : between what ought to be and what 
 is, between freedom and natural necessity. 
 
 I. Esthetics. — The sesthetical sense differs both from the 
 understanding and the will. It is neither theoretical nor practical 
 in character ; it is a phenomenon sui generis. But it has this in 
 common with reason and will, that it rests on an essentially sub- 
 jective basis. Just as reason constitutes the true, and will the 
 good, so the sesthetical sense makes the beautiful. Beauty does 
 not inhere in objects ; it does not exist apart from the sesthetical 
 sense ; it is the froduct of this sense, as time and space are the 
 products of the theoretical sense. That is beautiful which pleases 
 (quality), which pleases all (quantity), which pleases without in- 
 terest and without a concept (relation), and pleases necessarily 
 (modality).' 
 
 What characterizes the beautiful and distinguishes it from the 
 sublime, is the feeling of peace, tranquillity, or harmony which it 
 arouses in us, in consequence of the perfect agreement between 
 the understanding and the imagination. The sublime, on the other 
 band, disturbs us, agitates us, transports us. Beauty dwells in the 
 form ; the sublime, in the disproportion between the form and the 
 content. The beautiful calms and pacifies us ; the sublime brings 
 disorder" into our faculties; it produces discord between the rea- 
 son, which conceives the infinite, and the imagination, which has 
 its fixed limits. The emotion caused in us by the starry heavens, 
 the storm, and the raging sea springs from the conflict aroused by 
 these different phenomena between our reason, which can measure 
 the forces of nature and the heavenly distances without being over- 
 whelmed by the enormous figures, and our imagination, which 
 cannot follow reason into the depths of infinity. Man has a feel- 
 ing of grandeur, because he himself is grand through reason. The 
 animal remains passive in the presence of the grand spectacles of 
 nature, because its intelligence does not rise beyond the level of its 
 imagination. Hence we aptly say, the sublime elevates the soul 
 (das Erhabene ist erhebend). In the feeling of the sublime, man 
 reveals himself as a being infinite in reason, finite in imagi- 
 
 1 Kritik der Urtheilskraft, pp. 43 ff. 
 
256 kant's life and philosophy. 
 
 nation. Both infinite and finite : how is that possible ? Kant can- 
 not fathom this mystery without surpassing the limits which he has 
 prescribed to knowledge.' 
 
 2. Teleology? — There are two kinds of purposiveness. The 
 one arouses in us, immediately and without the aid of any con- 
 cept, a feeling of pleasure, satisfaction, and inner harmony : this is 
 subjective finality, which constitutes the beautiful. The other also 
 arouses pleasure, but mediately, in consequence of an experience 
 or an intermediate process of reasoning : this is objective finality, 
 which constitutes the suitable (das Zuieckmdssige). Thus, a 
 flower may be both the object of an sesthetical judgment in the 
 artist, and of a teleological judgment in the naturalist, who has 
 tested its value as a remedy. Only, the judgment which stamps it 
 as beautiful is immediate and spontaneous, while that of the 
 naturalist depends on previous experience. 
 
 The Critique of Pure Reason regards every phenomenon as a 
 necessary effect, and therefore excludes purposiveness from the 
 phenomenal world. Physics merely enumerates an infinite series 
 of causes and effects. Teleology introduces between the cause and 
 the effect, considered as the end or goal, the means, the in- 
 strumental cause. Theoretically, teleology is valueless. However, 
 we cannot avoid it so long as we apply our teleological sense to 
 the study of nature. Unless we abandon one of our faculties, 
 which is as real and inevitable as reason and will, we cannot help 
 recognizing purposiveness in the structure of the eye, the ear, and 
 the organism in general. Though mechanism fully explains the 
 inorganic world, the teleological view forces itself upon us when 
 we come to consider anatomy, physiology, and biology. 
 
 The antinomy of mechanism, affirmed by the theoretical rea- 
 son, and teleology, claimed by the teleological sense, is no more 
 insoluble than that of necessity and freedom.' Teleology is noth- 
 ing but a theory concerning phenomena. It no more expresses the 
 essence of things than mechanism. This essence is as unknowable 
 for the Critique of Judgment as for the Critique of Pure Reason. 
 Things-in-themselves are not in time ; they have no succession, no 
 duration. According to mechanism, the cause and its effect, ac- 
 cording to teleology, the free cause, the means, and the goal at 
 which it aims, follow each other, i. e. , they are separated in time. 
 
 IKriiik der Urtheilskraft, pp. 97 ff. ; 399 ffi. 
 2/rf., pp. S39 ff. iKritik der Urtheilskraft, pp. 30a £E. 
 
kant's life and philosophy. 257 
 
 But time is merely an a priori tovm of intuition, a, mode of con- 
 ceiving things ; as such and apart from my thought or my theory, 
 the cause and the efEect of the mechanist, the creative agent, the 
 means, and the goal of the teleologist, are in each other, insepar- 
 able, simultaneous. Imagine an understanding which is not bound 
 to the a priori forms of space and time like ours, a free and ab- 
 solute intellectual intuition : such an understanding would perceive 
 the cause, the means, and the end at one glance ; it would identify 
 the end and the principle ; the end would not follow the efiScient 
 cause, but would be immanent in it and identical with it. Im- 
 manent teleology, which identifies the ends of nature with the act- 
 ing causes, is the natural solution of the antinomy of mechanism 
 and purposiveness. 
 
 We see that the subjectivity of time and space is the most 
 original and, on the whole, the most fruitful of Kant's teachings. 
 There is no question so subtle, no problem so obscure, as not to 
 be illuminated by it. Space and time are the eyes of the mind, 
 the organs which reveal to it its inexhaustible content. These 
 organs are at the same time the boundaries of its knowledge. But 
 in spite of this insurmountable barrier, it feels free, immortal, and 
 divine ; and it declares its independence in the field of action. It 
 is the mind which prescribes its laws to the phenomenal world ; it 
 is the mind from which the moral law proceeds ; it is the mind and 
 its judgment which make the beautiful beautiful. In short, the 
 three Critiques culminate in absolute spiritualism. Kant compared 
 his work to that of Copernicus : just as the author of the Celestial 
 Revolutions puts the sun in the place of the earth in our planetary 
 system, so the author of the Critique places the mind in the centre 
 of the phenomenal world and makes the latter dependent upon it. 
 Kant's philosophy is, undoubtedly, the most remarkable and most 
 fruitful product of modern thought. With a single exception, 
 perhaps,' the greatest systems which our century has produced are 
 continuations of Kantianism. Even those — and their number has 
 grown during the last thirty years — who have again taken up the 
 Anglo-French philosophy of the eighteenth century, revere the 
 illustrious name of Immanuel Kant. 
 
 IWe mean the system of Comte, which is closely related to the French 
 philosophy of the eighteenth century. Comte himself says, in a letter to 
 Gustave d'Eichthal, dated December loth, 1824 : " I have always considered 
 Kant not only as a very powerful thinker, but also as the metaphysician who 
 most closely approximates the positive philosophy." 
 
KANT'S VIEWS ON RELIGION. 
 
 (after schwegler.') 
 
 RANT'S views of religion appear in his treatise on Religion 
 ■within the Bounds of Pure Reason. The fundamental idea 
 of this treatise is the reduction of religion to morality. Between 
 morality and religion there may be the twofold relation, that either 
 morality is founded upon religion, or else religion upon morality. 
 If the first relation were real, it would give us fear and hope as 
 principles of moral action ; but this cannot be ; there remains, 
 therefore, only the second. Morality leads necessarily to religion, 
 because the highest good is a necessary ideal of the reason, and 
 this can only be realized through a God ; but in no way may reli- 
 gion first incite us to virtue, for the idea of God may never become 
 a moral motive. Religion, according to Kant, is the recognition 
 of all our duties as divine commands. It is revealed religion when 
 I must first know that something is a divine command, in order to 
 know that it is my duty : it is natural religion when I must first 
 know that something is my duty, in order to know that it is a di- 
 vine command. The Church is an ethical community, which has 
 for its end the fulfilment and the most perfect exhibition of moral 
 commands, — a union of those who with united energies purpose to 
 resist evil and advance morality. The Church, in so far as it is no 
 object of a possible experience, is called the invisible Church, 
 which, as such, is merely the idea of the union of all the righteous 
 under the divine moral government of the world. The visible 
 Church, on the other hand, is that which represents the kingdom 
 of God upon earth, so far as this can be attained through men. 
 The requisites, and hence also the characteristics of the true visi- 
 ble Church (which are divided according to the table of the cate- 
 gories since this Church is given in experience) are the following: 
 
 1 Schwegler's History of Philosophy. Translated by Seelye. New York 
 Appleton. Schwegler's compendium has enjoyed the greatest popularity both 
 in Germany and abroad, for its accuracy and trustworthiness. 
 
Kant's life and philosophy. ^59 
 
 (o) In respect of quantity the Church must be total or universal,- 
 and though it may be divided in accidental opinions, yet must it be 
 instituted upon such principles as -will necessarily lead to a 
 universal union in one single church, (b) The quality of the true 
 visible Church is furity, as a union under no other than moral 
 motives, since it is at the same time purified from the stupidness 
 of superstition and the madness of fanaticism, (c) The relation 
 of the members of the Church to each other rests upon the principle 
 of freedom. The Church is, therefore, a. free state, neither a hie- 
 rarchy nor a democracy, but a voluntary, universal, and enduring 
 spiritual union, (d) In respect of modality the Church demands 
 that its constitution should be unchangeable. The laws them- 
 selves may not change, though one may reserve to himself the 
 privilege of changing some accidental arrangements which relate 
 simply to the administration. — That alone which can establish a 
 universal Church is the moral faith of the reason, for this alone can 
 be shared by the convictions of every man. But, because of the 
 peculiar weakness of human nature, we can never reckon enough 
 on this pure faith to build a Church on it alone, for men are not 
 easily convinced that the striving after virtue and an irreproach- 
 able life is every thing which God demands : they always suppose 
 that they must offer to God a special service prescribed by tradi- 
 tion, which only amounts to this — that be is served. 
 
 To establish a Church, we must therefore have a statutory 
 faith historically grounded upon facts. This is the so-called 
 faith of the Church. In every Church there are therefore two ele- 
 ments — the purely moral, or the faith of reason, and the historico- 
 statutory, or the faith of the Church It depends now upon the re- 
 lation of these two elements whether a Church shall have any 
 worth or not. The statutory element should ever be only the 
 vehicle of the moral element. Just so soon as this element becomes 
 in itself an independent end, claiming an independent validity, will 
 the Church become corrupt and irrational, and whenever the 
 Church passes over to the pure faith of reason, it approximates to 
 the kingdom of God. Upon this principle we may distinguish the 
 true from the spurious service of the kingdom of God, religion 
 from priestcraft. A dogma has worth alone in so far as it has a 
 moral content. The apostle Paul himself would scarcely have 
 given credit to the dicta of the creed of the Church without this 
 moral faith. From the doctrine of Trinity, e. jj-., taken literally, 
 nothing actually practical can be derived. Whether we have to 
 
26o rant's life and philosophy. 
 
 reverence in the Godhead three persons or ten makes no differ- 
 ence, if in both cases we have the same rules for our conduct ol 
 life. The Bible also, with its interpretation, must be considered 
 in a moral point of view. The records of revelation must be inter- 
 preted in a sense which will harmonize with the universal rules of 
 the religion of reason. Reason is in religious things the highest 
 I'nterpreter of the Bible. This interpretation in reference to some 
 texts may seem forced, yet it must be preferred to any such literal 
 interpretation as would contain nothing for morality, or perhaps 
 go against every moral feeling. That such a moral signification 
 may always be found without ever entirely repudiating the literal 
 sense, results from the fact that the foundation for an ethical reli- 
 gion lay originally in the human reason. We need only to divest 
 the representations of the Bible of their mythical dress (an attempt 
 which Kant has himself made, by an ethical interpretation of some 
 of the weightiest doctrines), in order to attain for them a rational 
 meaning which shall be universally valid. The historical element 
 of the sacred books is in itself of no account. The maturer the 
 reason becomes, the more it can hold fast for itself the moral sense, 
 so much the more unnecessary will be the statutory institutions of 
 the faith of the Church. The transition from the creed of the 
 Church to the pure faith of reason is the approximation to the 
 kingdom of God, to which however, we can only approach nearer 
 and nearer in an infinite progress. The actual realization of the 
 kingdom of God is the end of the world, the termination of history 
 
KANT AND MATERIALISM. 
 (after lange.') 
 
 As a routed army looks around it for a firm point where it may 
 hope to collect again into order, so recently there has been 
 heard everywhere in philosophic circles the cry, "Retreat to 
 Kant ! " Only more recently, however, has this retreat to Kant 
 become a reality, and it is found that at bottom the standpoint of 
 the great Konigsberg philosopher could never have been properly 
 described as obsolete ; nay, that we have every reason to plunge 
 into the depths of the Kantian system with most serious efforts, 
 such as have hitherto been spent upon scarcely any other philoso- 
 pher save Aristotle. 
 
 Misapprehension and impetuous productiveness have com- 
 bined in an intellectually active age to break through the strict 
 barriers which Kant had imposed upon speculation. The reaction 
 which succeeded the metaphysical intoxication contributed the 
 more to the return to the prematurely abandoned position, as men 
 sound themselves again confronted by the Materialism which at 
 the appearance of Kant had disappeared and left scarcely a wrack 
 behind. At present we have not only a young school of Kantians 
 in the narrower and wider sense, but those also who wish to try 
 other paths see themselves compelled first to reckon with Kant, 
 and to offer a special justification for departing from his ways. 
 Even the factitious and exaggerated enthusiam for Schopenhauer's 
 philosophy partly owed its origin to a related tendency, while in 
 many cases it formed for more logical minds a transition to Kant. 
 But a special emphasis must here be laid on the friendly attitude 
 of men of science, who, so far as Materialism failed to satisfy 
 them, have inclined for the most part to a way of thinking which, 
 in very essential points, agrees with that of Kant. 
 
 IHistory of Materialism. Trans, by Thomas, 3 vols. London : Triibne. 
 Co. 1880. 
 
262 kant's life and philosophy. 
 
 And it is, in fact, by no means strictly orthodox Kantianism 
 upon which we must have laid distinctive stress ; least of all that 
 dogmatic turn with which Schleiden thought he could crush Mate- 
 rialism when he compared Kant, Fries, and Apelt with Keppler; 
 Newton, and Laplace, and maintained that by their labors the 
 ideas "Soul," "Freedom," "God," were as firmly established as 
 the laws of the stellar world. Such dogmatism is entirely foreign 
 to the spirit of the critique of reason, although Kant personally 
 attached great value to his having withdrawn these very ideas 
 from the controversy of the schools, by relegating them, as utterly 
 incapable as well of positive as negative proof, to the sphere of 
 practical philosophy. But the whole of the practical philosophy 
 is the variable and perishable part of Kant's philosophy, powerful 
 as were its effects upon his contemporaries. Only its site is im- 
 perishable, not the edifice that the master has erected on this site. 
 Even the demonstration of this site, as of a free ground for the 
 building of ethical systems, can scarcely be numbered among the 
 permanent elements of the system, and therefore, if we are speak- 
 ing of the salvation of moral ideas, nothing is more unsuitable 
 than to compare Kant with Keppler, to say nothing of Newton and 
 Laplace. Much rather must we seek for the whole importance of 
 the great reform which Kant inaugurated in his criticism of the 
 theoretical reason ; here lies, in fact, even for ethics, the lasting 
 importance of the critical philosophy, which not only aided the 
 development of a particular system of ethical ideas, but, if prop- 
 erly carried on, is capable of affording similar aid to the changing 
 requirements of various epochs of culture. 
 
 Kant himself was very far from comparing himself with Kep- 
 pler; but he made another comparison, that is more significant 
 and appropriate. He compared his achievement to that of Coper- 
 nicus. But this achievement consisted in this, that he reversed 
 the previous standpoint of metaphysics. Copernicus dared, "by 
 a paradoxical yet true method," to seek the observed motions, no, 
 in the heavenly bodies, but in their observers. Not less "para- 
 doxical " must it appear to the sluggish mind of man when Kant 
 lightly and certainly overturns our collective experience, with all 
 the historical and exact sciences, by the simple assumption that 
 our notions do not regulate themselves according to things, but 
 things according to our notions.* It follows immediately from 
 
 1 Compare the preface to the second edition of the Critique. Kant indeed 
 lets it here appear (note to p. xxii., Hartenst., iii. so fE.) that in thoroughgoing 
 
kant's life and philosophy. 263 
 
 this that the objects of experience altogether are only our objects; 
 that the whole objective world is, in a word, not absolute objectiv- 
 ity, but only objectivity for man and any similarly organised be- 
 ings, while behind the phenomenal world, the absolute nature of 
 things, the " thing-in-itseU" is veiled in impenetrable darkness. 
 
 criticism he claims the rOle of a Newton, by whose theory had been provea 
 what Copernicus in his opinion (comp. as to this vol. I., p. 230) had only pro- 
 posed as "hypothesis." But for the purpose of gaining a first view of the 
 nature of the Kantian reform, the comparison with Copernicus made in the 
 preface is more important. 
 
KANT AND DEISM. 
 
 (after HEINRICH HEINE.') 
 
 LESSING died at Brunswick in 1781, misunderstood, hated, 
 and decried. In the same year appeared at Konigsberg Im- 
 manuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. With this book 
 (which through a singular delay did not become generally known 
 till the close of the decade) there begins in Germany an intellectual 
 revolution which offers the most striking analogies to the material 
 revolution in France, and which must to the deeper thinkers ap- 
 pear of at least as great importance as the latter. It developed it- 
 self in the same phases, and between both revolutions there exists 
 the most remarkable parallelism. On each side of the Rhine we 
 see the same breach with the past ; all respect for tradition is with- 
 drawn. As here, in France, every privilege, so there, in Germany, 
 every thought, must justify itself ; as here, the monarchy, the key- 
 stone of the old social edifice, so there, deism, the keystone of the 
 old intellectual regime, falls from its place. 
 
 Of this catastrophe, the 21st of January, for deism, we shall 
 speak in the concluding part of this volume. A peculiar awe, a 
 mysterious piety, overcomes us. Our heart is full of shuddering 
 compassion : it is the old Jehovah himself that is preparing for 
 death. We have known him so well from his cradle in Egypt, 
 where he was reared among the divine calves and crocodiles, the 
 sacred onions, ibises, and cats. We have seen him bid farewell to 
 these companions of his childhood and to the obelisks and sphinxes 
 of his native Nile, to become in Palestine a little god-king amidst 
 a poor shepherd people, and to inhabit a temple-palace of his own. 
 We have seen him later coming into contact with Assyrian-Baby- 
 lonian civilisation, renouncing his all-too-human passions, no 
 
 From Religion and Philosophy in Germany, Translated by John Snod- 
 grass, Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1882. This work by Heine is cele- 
 brated for its trenchant wit, and is the literary story o{ German philosophy 
 par excellence. 
 
SrUtf 
 
 tev 
 
 uiun BmmH 
 
 =§S= 
 
 Don 
 
 3 m m a It u e I ^ a n t 
 
 3? i g Or 
 
 \>ttU$ti 3o^ann ^riebrid; JQattinoi} 
 
 1781. 
 
266 kant's life and philosophy. 
 
 longer giving vent to fierce wrath and vengeance, at least no 
 longer thundering at every trifle. We have seen him migrate to 
 Rome, the capital, where he abjures all national prejudices and 
 proclaims the celestial equality of all nations, and with such fine 
 phrases establishes an opposition to the old Jupiter, and intrigues 
 ceaselessly till he attains supreme authority, and from the Capitol 
 rules the city and the world, urbem et orbem. We have seen how, 
 growing still more spiritualised, he becomes a loving father, a 
 universal friend of man, a benefactor of the world, a philanthro- 
 pist ; but all this could avail him nothing ! 
 
 Hear ye not the bells resounding? Kneel down. They are 
 bringing the sacraments to a dying god ! 
 
 *. * * 
 It is related that an Knglish mechanician, who had already in- 
 vented the most ingenious machines, at last took it into his head 
 to construct a man ; and that he succeeded. The work of his 
 hands deported itself and acted quite like a human being ; it even 
 contained within its leathern breast a sort of apparatus of human 
 sentiment, differing not greatly from the habitual sentiments of 
 Englishmen; it could communicate its emotions by articulate 
 sounds, and the noise of wheels in its interior, of springs and es- 
 capements, which was distinctly audible, reproduced the genuine 
 English pronunciation. This automaton, in short, was an accom- 
 plished gentleman, and nothing was wanting to render it com- 
 pletely human except a soul. But the English mechanician had 
 not the power to bestow on his work this soul, and the poor 
 creature, having become conscious of its imperfection, tormented 
 its creator day and night with supplication for a soul. This re- 
 quest, daily repeated with growing urgency, became at last so in- 
 supportable to the poor artist that he took to flight in order to es- 
 cape from his own masterpiece. But the automaton also took the 
 mail coach, pursued him over the whole continent, travelled in- 
 cessantly at his heels, frequently overtook him, and then gnashed 
 and growled in his ears. Give me a soul! These two figures may 
 now be met with in every country, and he only who knows their 
 peculiar relationship to each other can comprehend their unwonted 
 haste and their haggard anxiety. But as soon as we are made 
 aware of their strange relationship, we at once discover in them 
 something of a general character ; we see how one portion of the 
 English people is becoming weary of its mechanical existence, and 
 is demanding a soul, whilst the other portion, tormented by such a 
 
KANT'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY. 267 
 
 request, is driven about in all directions, and that neither of them 
 can endure matters at home any longer. 
 
 The story is a terrible one. It is a fearful thing when the 
 bodies we have created demand of us a soul ; but it is a far more 
 dreadful, more terrible, more awful thing when we have created a 
 soul, to hear that soul demanding of us a body, and to behold it 
 pursuing us with this demand. The thought to which we have 
 given birth is such a soul, and it leaves us no rest until we have 
 endowed it with a body, until we have given it sensible reality. 
 Thought strives to become action, the word to become flesh, and, 
 marvellous to relate, man, like God in the Bible, needs only to ex- 
 press his thought and the world takes form ; there is light or dark- 
 ness ; the waters separate themselves from the dry land ; or it may 
 even be that wild beasts are brought forth. The world is the sign- 
 manual of the word. 
 
 Mark this, ye proud men of action ; ye are nothing but un- 
 conscious hodmen of the men of thought who, often in humblest 
 stillness, have appointed you your inevitable task. Maximilian 
 Robespierre was merely the hand of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the 
 bloody hand that drew from the womb of time the body whose soul 
 Rousseau had created. May not the restless anxiety that troubled 
 the life of Jean Jacques have caused such stirrings within him 
 that he already foreboded the kind of accoucheur that was needed 
 to bring his thought living into the world ? 
 
 Old Fontenelle may have been right when he said : "If I held 
 all the truths of the universe in my hand, I would be very careful 
 not to open it." I, for my part, think otherwise. If I held all the 
 truths of the world in ray hand, I might perhaps beseech you in- 
 stantly to cut off that hand ; but, in any case, I should not long 
 hold it closed. I was not born to be a gaoler of thoughts ; by 
 Heaven ! I would set them free. What though they were to in- 
 carnate themselves in the most hazardous realities, what though 
 they were to range through all lands like a mad bacchanalian pro- 
 cession, what though they were to crush with their thyrsus our 
 most innocent flowers, what though they were to invade our hos- 
 pitals and chase from his bed the old sick world — my heart would 
 bleed, no doubt, and I myself would sufier thereby ! For alas ! I 
 too am part of this old sick world, and the poet says truly, one may 
 mock at his crutches yet not be able to walk any better for that. I 
 am the most grievously sick of you all, and am the more to be 
 pitied since I know what health is ; but you do not know it, you 
 
268 kant's life and philosophy. 
 
 whoa I envy ; you are capable of dying without perceiving your 
 dying condition. Yea, many of ydu are already long since dead, 
 though maintaining that your real life is just beginning. When I 
 try to dispel such a delusion, then you are angry with me and rail 
 at me, and, more horrible still, the dead rush upon and mock at 
 me, and more loathsome to me than their insults is the smell of 
 their putrefaction. Hence, ye spectres ! I am about to speak of a 
 man whose mere name has the iriighf of an exorcism ; I speak of 
 Immanuel Kant. 
 
 It is said that night-wandering spirits are filled with terror at 
 sight of the headsman's axe. With what mighty fear, then, must 
 they be stricken when there is held up to them Kant's Critique 
 of Pure Reason ! This is the sword that slew deism in Ger- 
 many. 
 
 To speak frankly, you French have been tame and moderate 
 compared with us Germans. At most, you cfould but kill a king, 
 and he had a:lready lost his head before you guillotined him. For 
 accompaniment to such deed you must needs cause such a drum- 
 ming and shrieking and stamping of feet that the whole universe 
 trembled. To compare Maximilian Robespierre with Immanuel 
 Kant is to coAfer too high an honour upon the former. Maximil- 
 lian Robespierre, the great citizen cif the Rue Saint Honor^, had, 
 it is true, his sudden attacks of destructiveness when it was a ques- 
 tion of the monarchy, and his frame was violently convulsed when 
 the fit of re'gicidal epilepsy was on ; but as soon as it came to be a 
 question about the Supreme Being, he wiped the white froth from 
 his lips, washed the blood from his hands, donned his blue Sunday 
 coat with silver buttons, and stuck a nosegay in the bosom of his 
 broad vest. 
 
 The history of Immanuel Kant's life is difficult to portray, for 
 he had neither life nor history. He led a mechanical, regular 
 almost abstract bachelor existence in a little retired street of Ko- 
 nigsbefg, an old town on the north eastern frontier of Germany. 
 I do not believe that the great clock of the cathedral performed in 
 a more passionless and methodical manner its daily routine than 
 did its townsman, Immanuel Kant. Rising in the morning, coSee- 
 drinking, writing, reading lectures, dining, walking, everything had 
 its appointed time, and the neighbours knew that it was exactly 
 half-p&sft three o'clock when Immanuel Kant stepped forth from 
 his house in his grey, tight-fitting coat, with his Spanish cane in 
 his hand, and betook himself to the little linden avenUe called after 
 
kant's life and philosophy. 269 
 
 him to this day the "Philosopher's Walk." Summer and winter 
 he walked up and down it eight times, and when the weather was 
 dull or heavy clouds prognosticated rain, the townspeople beheld 
 his servant, the old Lampe, trudging anxiously behind him with a 
 big umbrella under his arm, like an image of Providence. 
 
 What a strange contrast did this man's outward life present to 
 his destructive, world-annihilating thoughts ! In sooth, bad the 
 citizens of Konigsberg bad the least presentiment of the full signifi- 
 cance of his ideas, they would have felt a far more awful dread at 
 the presence of this man than at the sight of an executioner, who 
 caU but kill the body. But the worthy folk saw in him nothing 
 more than a Professor of Philosophy, and as be passed at his 
 customary hour, they greeted him in a friendly manner and set 
 their watches by him. 
 
 But though Immanuel Kant, the arch-destroyer in the realm 
 of thought, far surpassed in terrorism Maximilian Robespierre, he 
 had many similarities with the latter, which induce a comparison 
 between the two men. In the first place, we find in both the same 
 inexorable, keen, poesyless, sober integrity. We likewise find in both 
 the same talent of suspicion, only that in the one it manifested 
 itself in the direction of thought and was called criticism, whilst in 
 the other it was directed against mankind and was styled re- 
 publican virtue. But both presented in the highest degree the type 
 of the narrow-minded citizen. Nature had destined them for 
 weighing out coffee and sugar, but fate decided that they should 
 weigh out other things, and into the scales of the one it laid a king, 
 
 into the scales of the other a God And they both gave the 
 
 correct weight ! 
 
 The Critique of Pure Reason is Kant's principal work; 
 and as none of his other writings is of equal importance, in speak- 
 ing of it we must give it the right of preference. This book ap- 
 peared in 1781, but, as already said, did not become generally 
 known till 1789. At the time of its publication it was quite over- 
 looked, except for two insignificant notices, and it was not till a 
 later period that public attention was directed to this great book by 
 the articles of Schiitz, Schultz, and Reinhold. The cause of this 
 tardy recognition undoubtedly lay in the unusual form and bad 
 style in which the work is written. As regards his style, Kant 
 merits severer censure than any other philosopher, more especially 
 when we compare this with his former and better manner of writ- 
 ing. The recently published collection of his minor works con- 
 
270 rant's life and philosophy. 
 
 tains his first attempts, and we are surprised to find in these an ex- 
 cellent and often very witty style. These little treatises were trilled 
 forth while their author ruminated over his great work. There is 
 a gleefulness about them like that of a soldier tranquilly arming 
 for a combat in which he promises himself certain victory. Espe- 
 cially remarkable amongst them are his Universal Natural His- 
 tory and Theory of the Heavens, composed as early as 1753 ; 
 Observations on the Emotions of the Sublime and Beautiful 
 written ten years later ; and Dreams of a Ghostseer, full of 
 admirable humour after the manner of the French essay. Kant's 
 wit as displayed in these pamphlets is of quite a peculiar sort. The 
 wit clings to the thought, and in spite of its tenuity is thus enabled 
 to reach a satisfactory height. Without such support wit, be it 
 ever so robust, cannot be successful ; like a vine-tendril wanting a 
 prop, it can only creep along the ground to rot there with all its 
 most precious fruits. 
 
 But why did Kant write his Critique of Pure Reason in 
 such a colourless, dry, packing-paper style ? I fancy that, having 
 rejected the mathematical form of the Cartesio-Leibnitzo-Wolfian 
 school, he feared that science might lose something of its dignity 
 by expressing itself in light, attractive, and agreeable tones. He 
 therefore gave it a stiff, abstract form, which coldly repelled all 
 familiarity on the part of intellects of the lower order. He wished 
 haughtily to separate himself from the popular philosophers of his 
 time, who aimed at the most citizen-like clearness, and so clothed 
 his thoughts in a courtly and frigid official dialect. Herein he 
 shows himself a true philistine. But it might also be that Kant 
 needed for the carefully measured march of his ideas a language 
 similarly precise, and that he was not in a position to create a 
 better. It is only genius that has a new word for a new thought. 
 Immanuel Kant, however, was no genius. Conscious of this de- 
 fect, Kant, like the worthy Maximilian, showed himself all the 
 more mistrustful of genius, and went so far as to maintain, in his 
 Critique of the Faculty of Judgment, that genius has no busi- 
 ness with scientific thought, and that its action ought to be rele- 
 gated to the domain of art. 
 
 The heavy, buckram style of Kant's chief work has been the 
 source of much mischief ; for brainless imitators aped him in his 
 external form, and hence arose amongst us the superstition that no 
 one can be a philosopher who writes well. The mathematical 
 form, however, could not, after the days of Kant, reappear in 
 
kant's life and philosophy. 271 
 
 philosophy ; he has mercilessly passed sentence of death upon it in 
 his Critique of Pure Reason. The mathematical form in phi- 
 losophy, he says, is good for nothing save the building of houses 
 of cards, in the same way that the philosophic form in mathe- 
 matics produces nothing but twaddle, for in philosophy there can 
 be no definitions such as those in mathematics, where the defini- 
 tions are not discursive but intuitive, that is to say, capable of be- 
 ing demonstrated by inspection ; whilst what are called definitions 
 in philosophy are only tentatively, hypothetically put forth, the 
 real definition appearing only at the close, as the result. 
 
 How comes it that philosophers display so strong a predilec- 
 tion for the mathematical form ? This predilection dates from the 
 time of Pythagoras, who designated the principles of things by 
 numbers. This was the idea of a genius : all that is sensible and 
 finite is stripped off in a number, and yet it denotes something 
 determined, and the relation of this thing to another determined 
 thing, which last, designated in turn by a number, receives the 
 same insensible and infinite character. In this respect numbers re- 
 semble ideas that preserve the same character and relation to one 
 another. We can indicate by numbers in a very striking manner 
 ideas, as they are produced in our mind and in nature ; but the 
 number still remains the sign of the idea, it is not the idea itself. 
 The master is always conscious of this distinction, but the scholar 
 forgets it, and transmits to other scholars at second hand merely a 
 numerical hieroglyph, dead ciphers, which are repeated with par- 
 rot-like scholastic pride, but of which the living significance is lost. 
 This applies likewise to the other methods of mathematical de- 
 monstration. The intellect in its eternal mobility suffers no arrest ; 
 and just as little can it be fixed down by lines, triangles, squares, 
 and circles, as by numbers. Thought can neither be calculated 
 nor measured. 
 
 As my chief duty is to facilitate in France the study of German 
 philosophy, I always dwell most strongly on the external difficulties 
 that are apt to dismay a stranger who has not already been made 
 aware of them. I would draw the special attention of those who 
 desire to make Frenchmen acquainted with Kant to the fact, that 
 it is possible to abstract from his philosophy that portion which 
 serves merely to refute the absurdities of the Wolfian philosophy. 
 This polemic, constantly reappearing, will only tend to produce 
 confusion in the minds of Frenchmen, and can be of no utility 
 to them. 
 
272 kant's life and philosophy. 
 
 The Critique of Pure Reason is, as I have said, Kant's 
 principal work, and his other writings are in a measure super- 
 fluous, or may at least be considered as commentaries. The social 
 importance that attaches to his chief work will be apparent from 
 what follows. 
 
 The philosophers who preceded Kant reflected, doubtless, on 
 the origin of our cognitions, and followed, as we have seen, two 
 different routes, according to their view of ideas as a priori or as a 
 posteriori; but concerning the faculty of knowing, concerning the 
 extent and limits of this faculty, they occupied themselves less. 
 Now this was the task that Kant set before himself ; he submitted 
 the faculty of knowing to a merciless investigation, he sounded all 
 the depths of this faculty, he ascertained all its limits. In this in- 
 vestigation he ceftainly discovered that about many things, where- 
 with formerly we supposed ourselves to be most intimately ac- 
 quainted, we can know nothing. This was very rhortifying ; but it 
 has always been useful to know of what things we can know noth- 
 ing. He who warns us against a useless journey performs as great 
 a service for us as be who points out to us the true path. Kant 
 proves to us that we know nothing about things as they are in and 
 by themselves, but that we have a knowledge of them only in so 
 far as they are reflected in our minds. We are therefore just like 
 the prisoners of whose condition Plato draws such an afSicting 
 picture in the seventh book of his Republic. These wretched be- 
 ings, chained neck and thigh in such a manner that they cannot 
 turn their heads about, are seated within a roofless prison, into 
 which there comes from above a certain amount of light. This 
 light, however, is the light from a fire, the flame of which rises up 
 behind them, and indeed is separated from them only by a little 
 wall. Along the outer side of this wall are walking men bearing 
 all sorts of statues, images in wood and stone, and conversing with 
 one another. Now the pofir prisoners can see nothing of these 
 men, who are not tall enough to overtop the wall ; and of the 
 statues,' which rise above the wall, they see only the shadxjws flit- 
 ting along the side of the wall opposite them. The shadows, how- 
 ever, they take for real objects, and, deceived by the echo of their 
 prison, believe that it is the shadoi*s that are conversing. 
 
 With the appearance of Kant former systems of philosophy, 
 which had merely sniffed about the external aspect of things, as- 
 semblitig and classifying their characteristics, ceased to exist. Kant 
 led investigation back to the human intellect, and inquired what 
 
KANT'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY. 273 
 
 the latter had to reveal. Not without reason, therefore, did he 
 compare his philosophy to the method of Copernicus. Formerly, 
 when men conceived the world as standing still, and the sun as re- 
 volving round it, astronomical calculations failed to agree ac- 
 curately. But when Copernicus made the sun stand still and the 
 earth revolve round it, behold ! everything accorded admirably. 
 So formerly reason, like the sun, moved round the universe of 
 phenomena, and sought to throw light upon it. But Kant bade 
 reason, the sun, stand still, and the universe of phenomena now, 
 turns round, and is illuminated the moment it comes within the 
 region of the intellectual orb. 
 
 These few words regarding the task that presented itself to 
 Kant will 5u£5ce to show that I consider that section of his book 
 wherein he treats of phenomena and noumena as the most im- 
 portant part, as the central point, of his philosophy. Kant, in 
 effect, distinguishes between the appearances of things and things 
 themselves. As we can know nothing of objects except in so far 
 as they manifest themselves to us through their appearance, and as 
 objects do not exhibit themselves to us as they are in and by them- 
 selves, Kant gives the name phenomena to objects as they appear 
 to us, and noumena to objects as they are in themselves. We know 
 things, therefore, only as phenomena; we cannot know them as 
 noumena. The latter are purely problematic ; we can neither say 
 that they exist nor that they do not exist. The word noumena has 
 been correlated with the word phenomena merely to enable us to 
 speak of things in so far as they are cognisable by us, without oc- 
 cupying our judgment about things that are not cognisable by us. 
 Kant did not therefore, as do many teachers whom I will not 
 name, make a distinction of objects into phenomena and noumena, 
 into things that for us exist and into things that for us do not 
 exist. This would be an Irish bull in philosophy. He wished merely 
 to express a notion of limitation. 
 
 God, according to Kant, is a noumenon. As a result of his argu- 
 ment, this ideal and transcendental being, hitherto called God, is a 
 mere fiction. It has arisen from a natural illusion. Kant shows that 
 we can know nothing regarding this noumenon, regarding God, 
 and that all reasonable proof of his existence is impossible. The 
 words of Dante, "Leave all hope behind ! " may be inscribed over 
 this portion of the Critique of Pure Season. 
 
 My readers will, I think, gladly exempt me from attempting a 
 popular elucidation of that portion of bis work in which Kant 
 
274 kant's life and philosophy. 
 
 treats ' ' of the arguments of speculative reason in favour of the ex- 
 istence of a Supreme Being. " Although the formal refutation of 
 these arguments occupies but a small space, and is not taken in 
 hand till the second part of the book is reached, there is already a 
 very evident intention of leading up to this refutation, which forms 
 one of the main points of the work. It connects itself with the 
 Critique of all Speculative Theology, wherein the last phan- 
 toms of deism are put to flight. I cannot help remarking that 
 Kant, in attacking the three principal kinds of evidence in favour 
 of the existence of God, namely, the ontological, the cosmological, 
 and the physico-theological, whilst successful, according to my 
 opinion, in refuting the latter two, fails with regard to the first. I 
 am not aware whether the above terms are understood in this 
 country, and I therefore quote the passage from the Critique of 
 Pure Reason in which Kant formulates the distinction between 
 them. 
 
 ' ' There are but three kinds of proof possible to speculative 
 reason of the existence of God. All the routes that may be selected 
 with this end in view start, either from definite experience and the 
 peculiar properties of the external world, as revealed by experi- 
 ence, and ascend from it according to the laws of causality up to 
 the supreme cause above the world ; or, they rest merely on an 
 indefinite experience, as, for example, on an existence or being of 
 some kind or other ; or, lastly, they make an abstraction from all 
 experience, and arrive at a conclusion entirely a priori from pure 
 ideas of the existence of the supreme cause. The first of these is 
 the physico-theological proof, the second the cosmological, and the 
 third the ontological. Other proofs there are none, nor can other 
 proofs exist." 
 
 After repeated and careful study of Kant's chief work, I fan- 
 cied myself able to recognise everywhere visible in it his polemic 
 against these proofs of the existence of God ; and of this polemic I 
 might speak at greater length were I not restrained by a religious 
 sentiment. The mere discussion by any one of the existence of 
 God causes me to feel a strange disquietude, an uneasy dread such 
 as I once experienced in visiting New Bedlam in London, when, 
 for a moment losing sight of my guide, I was surrounded by mad- 
 men. " God is all that is," and doubt of His existence is doubt of 
 life itself, it is death. 
 
 The more blameworthy any dispute regarding the existence of 
 God may be, the more praiseworthy is meditation on the nature of 
 
Kant's life and philosophy. 275 
 
 God. Such meditation is a true worship of God ; the soul is 
 thereby detached from the perishable and finite, and attains to 
 consciousness of innate love and of the harmony of the universe. 
 It is this consciousness that sends a thrill through the heart of the 
 emotional man in the act of prayer or in the contemplation of the 
 sacred symbols ; and the thinker realises this holy fervour in the 
 exercise of that sublime faculty of the mind called reason, a faculty 
 whose highest function is to inquire into the nature of God. Men 
 of specially religious temperament concern themselves with this 
 problem from childhood upwards ; they are mysteriously troubled 
 about it even at the first dawnings of reason. The author of these 
 pages is most joyfully conscious of having possessed this early 
 primitive religious feeling, and it has never forsaken him. God 
 was always the beginning and the end of all my thoughts. If I 
 now inquire : What is God ? what is his nature ? — as a little child 
 I had already inquired : How is God ? what is he like ? In that 
 childish time I could gaze upwards at the sky during whole days, 
 and was sadly vexed at evening because I never caught a glimpse 
 of God's most holy countenance, but saw only the grey silly gri- 
 maces of the clouds. I was quite puzzled over the astronomical 
 lore with which in the "enlightenment period" even the youngest 
 children were tormented, and there was no end to my amazement 
 on learning that all those thousand millions of stars were spheres 
 as large and as beautiful as our own earth, and that over all this 
 glittering throng of worlds a single God ruled. I recollect once 
 seeing God in a dream far above in the most distant firmament. 
 He was looking contentedly out of a little window in the sky, a 
 devout hoary-headed being with a small Jewish beard, and he was 
 scattering forth myriads of seed-corns, which, as they fell from 
 heaven, burst open in the infinitude of space, and expanded to vast 
 dimensions till they became actual, radiant, blossoming, peopled 
 worlds, each one as large as our own globe. I could never forget 
 this countenance, and often in dreams I used to see the cheerful- 
 looking old man sprinkling forth the world-seeds from his little 
 window in the sky ; once I even saw him clucking like our maid 
 when she threw down for the hens their barley. I could only see 
 how the falling seed-corns expanded into great shining orbs : but 
 the great hens that may by chance have been waiting about with 
 eager open bills to be fed with the falling orbs I could not see. 
 
 You smile, dear reader, at the notion of the big hens. Yet this 
 childish notion is not so very different from the view of the most 
 
276 KANT'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 advanced deists. In the attempt to provide a conception of an ex- 
 tra-mundane God, orient and Occident have exhausted themselves 
 in hyperbole. The imagination of deists has, however, vainly tor- 
 mented itself with the infinitude of time and space. It is here that 
 their impotence, the inadequacy of their cosmology, and the unten- 
 ableness of their explanation of the nature of God becomes fully ap- 
 parent. We are not greatly distressed, therefore, at beholding the 
 subversion of their explanation. Kant has actually wrought this 
 affliction upon them by refuting their demonstration of the' exist- 
 ence of God. 
 
 Nor would the vindication of the ontological proof specially 
 benefit deism, for this proof is equally available for pantheism. 
 To render my meaning more intelligible, I may remark that the 
 ontological proof is the one employed by Descartes, and that long 
 before his time, in the Middle Ages, Anselm of Canterbury had ex- 
 pressed it in the form of an affecting prayer. Indeed, St. Augustine 
 may be said to have already made use of the ontological proof in 
 the second book of his work, De Libera Arhitrio. 
 
 I refrain, as I have said, from all popular discussion of Kant's 
 polemic against these proofs. Let it suffice to give an assurance 
 that since his time deism has vanished from the realm of specu- 
 lative reason. It may, perhaps, be several centuries yet before 
 this melancholy notice of decease gets universally bruited about; 
 we, however, have long since put on mourning. De Profundis! 
 
 You fancy, then, that we may now go home ! By my life, no 1 
 there is yet a piece to be played; after the tragedy comes the 
 farce. Up to this point Immanuel Kant has pursued the path of 
 inexorable philosophy ; he has stormed heaven and put the whole 
 garrison to the edge of the sword ; the ontological, cosmological, 
 and physico-theological bodyguards lie there lifeless; Deity itself, 
 deprived of demonstration, has succumbed ; there is now no All- 
 mercifulness, no fatherly kindness, no other-world reward for re- 
 nunciation in this world, the immortality of the soul lies in its last 
 agony — you can hear its groans and death-rattle ; and old Lampe 
 is standing by with his umbrella under his arm, an afflicted spec- 
 tator of the scene, tears and sweat-drops of terror dropping from 
 his countenance. Then Immanuel Kant relents and shows that he 
 is not merely a great philosopher but also a good man ; he reflects, 
 and half good-naturedly, half ironically, he says : ' ' Old Lampe 
 must have a God, otherwise the poor fellow can never be happy. 
 Now, man ought to be happy in this world ; practical reason says 
 
kant's life and philosophy. 277 
 
 so ; — well, I am quite willing that practical reason should also 
 guarantee the existence of God." As the result of this argument 
 Kant distingnishes between the theoretical reason and the practi- 
 cal reason, and by means of the latter, as with a magician's wand, 
 he revivifies deism, which theoretical reason had killed. 
 
 But is it not conceivable that Kant brought about this resur- 
 rection, not merely for the sake of old Lampe, but through fear of 
 the police ? Or did he act from sincere conviction ? Was not his 
 object in destroying all evidence for the existence of God to show 
 us how embarrassing it might be to know nothing about God ? In 
 doing so, he acted almost as sagely as a Westphalian friend of 
 mine, who smashed all the lanterns in the Grohnder Street in Got- 
 tingen, and then proceeded to deliver to us in the dark a long 
 lecture on the practical necessity of lanterns, which he had the- 
 oretically broken in order to show how, without them, we CQuld 
 see nothing. 
 
 I have already said that on its appearance the Critique of 
 Pure Reason did not cause the slightest sensation, and it was not 
 till several years later, after certain clear-sighted philosophers had 
 written elucidations of it, that public attention was aroused regard- 
 ing the book. In the year 1789, however, nothing else was talked 
 of in Germany but the philosophy of Kant, about which were 
 poured forth in abundance commentaries, chrestomathies, inter- 
 pretations, estimates, apologies, and so forth. We need only glance 
 through the first philosophic catalogue at hand, and the innumer- 
 able works having reference to Kant will amply testify to the in- 
 tellectual movement that originated with this single man. In some 
 it exhibited itself as an ardent enthusiasm, in others as an acrid 
 loathing, in many as a gaping curiosity regarding the result of this 
 intellectual revolution. We had popular riots in the world of 
 thought, just as you had in the material world, and over the dem- 
 olition of ancient dogmatism we grew as excited as you did at the 
 Storming of the Bastille. There was also but a handful of old pen- 
 sioners left for the defence of dogmatism, that is, the philosophy 
 of Wolf. It was a revolution, and one not wanting in horrors. 
 Amongst the party of the past, the really good Christians showed 
 least indignation at these horrors. Yea, they desired even greater, 
 in order that the measure of iniquity might be full, and the coun- 
 ter-revolution be more speedily accomplished as a necessary re- 
 action. We bad pessimists in philosophy as you had in politics. 
 As in France there were people who maintained that Robespierre 
 
278 kant's life and philosophy. 
 
 was the agent of Pitt, with us there were many who went so far in 
 their wilful blindness as to persuade themselves that Kant was in 
 secret alliance with them, and that he had destroyed all philo- 
 sophic proofs of the existence of God merely in order to convince 
 the world that man can never arrive at a knowledge of God by the 
 help of reason, and must therefore hold to revealed religion. 
 
 Kant brought about this great intellectual movement less by 
 the subject-matter of his writings than by the critical spirit that 
 pervaded them, a spirit that now began to force its way into all 
 sciences. It laid hold of all constituted authority. Even poetry 
 did not escape its influence. Schiller, for example, was a strong 
 Kantist, and his artistic views are impregnated with the spirit of 
 the philosophy of Kant. By reason of its dry, abstract character, 
 this philosophy was eminently hurtful to polite literature and the 
 fine arts. Fortunately it did not interfere in the art of cookery. 
 
 The German people is not easily set in motion ; but let it be 
 once forced into any path and it will follow it to its termination 
 with the most dogged perseverance. Thus we exhibited our char- 
 acter in matters of religion, thus also we now acted in philosophy. 
 Shall we continue to advance as consistently in politics ? 
 
 Germany was drawn into the path of philosophy by Kant, and 
 philosophy became a national cause. A brilliant troop of great 
 thinkers suddenly sprang up on German soil, as if called into be- 
 ing by magical art. If German philosophy should some day find, 
 as the French revolution has found, its Thiers and its Mignet, its 
 history will afford as remarkable reading as the works of these 
 authors. Germans will study it with pride, and Frenchmen with 
 admiration. 
 
THE KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 (after ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER.') 
 
 KANT'S greatest merit is the distinction of the phenomenon 
 from the thing in itself, based upon the proof that between 
 things and us there still always stands the intellect, so that they 
 cannot be known as they may be in themselves. He was led into 
 this path through Locke (see Prolegomena, § 13, Note 2). The 
 latter had shown that the secondary qualities of things, such as 
 sound, smell, color, hardness, softness, smoothness, and the like, 
 as founded on the affections of the senses, do not belong to the 
 objective body, to the thing in itself. To this he attributed only 
 the primary qualities, i. e., such as only presuppose space and im- 
 penetrability; thus extension, figure, solidity, number, mobility-. 
 But this easily discovered Lockeian distinction was, as it were, 
 only a youthful introduction to the distinction of Kant. The lat- 
 ter, starting from an incomparably higher standpoint, explains all 
 that Locke had accepted as primary qualities, i. e., qualities of 
 the thing in itself, as also belonging only to its phenomenal ap- 
 pearance in our faculty of apprehension, and this just because the 
 conditions of this faculty, space, time and causality, are known by 
 ■asafriori. Thus Locke had abstracted from the thing in itself 
 the share which the organs of sense have in its phenomenal ap- 
 pearance; Kant, however, further abstracted the share of the 
 brain-functions (though not under that name). Thus the distinc- 
 tion between the phenomenon and the thing in itself now received 
 an infinitely greater significance and a very much deeper meaning. 
 For this end be was obliged to take in hand the important separa- 
 tion of our a priori from our a posteriori knowledge which be- 
 fore him had never been carried out with adequate strictness and 
 completeness, nor with distinct consciousness. Accordingly this 
 
 iProm the World as Will and Idea. Trans, by Haldane and Kemp. 
 3 vols. Third edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co. i8g6. 
 
28o kant's life and philosophy. 
 
 now became the principal subject of his profound investigations 
 Now here we would at once remark that Kant's philosophy has a 
 threefold relation to that of his predecessors. First, as we have 
 just seen, to the philosophy of Locke, confirming and extending 
 it ; secondly, to that of Hume, correcting and making use of it, a 
 relation which is most distinctly expressed in the Prolegomena 
 (that most beautiful and comprehensible of all Kant's important 
 writings, which is far too little read, for it facilitates immensely 
 the study of his philosophy); thirdly, a decidedly polemical and 
 destructive relation to the Leibnitz- Wolfian philosophy. All three 
 systems ought to be known before one proceeds to the study of the 
 Kantian philosophy. Now as Kant's separation of the plienome- 
 non from the thing in itself, arrived at in the manner explained 
 above, far surpassed all that preceded it in the depth and thought- 
 fulness of its conception, it was also exceedingly important in its 
 results. For in it he propounded, quite originally, in a perfectly 
 new way, found from a new side and on a new path, the same 
 truth which Plato never wearies of repeating, and in his language 
 generally expresses thus : This world which appears to the senses 
 has no true being, but only a ceaseless becoming ; it is, and it is 
 not, and its comprehension is not so much knowledge as illusion. 
 This is also what he expresses mythically at the beginning of the 
 seventh book of the Republic, which is the most important passage 
 in all his writings. He says: "Men, firmly chained in a dark 
 cave, see neither the true original light nor real things, but only 
 the meagre light of the fire in the cave and the shadows of real 
 things which pass by the fire behind their backs ; yet they think 
 the shadows are the reality, and the determining of the succession 
 of these shadows is true wisdom." The same truth, again quite 
 differently presented, is also a leading doctrine of the Vedas and 
 Pnranas, the doctrine of M4yi, by which really nothing else is 
 understood than what Kant calls the phenomenon in opposition to 
 the thing in itself ; for the work of MSyd is said to be just this 
 visible world in which we are, a summoned enchantment, an in- 
 constant appearance without true being, like an optical illusion or 
 a dream, a veil which surrounds human consciousness, something 
 of which it is equally false and true to say that it is and that it is 
 not. But Kant not only expressed the same doctrine in a com- 
 pletely new and original way, but raised it to the position of proved 
 and indisputable truth by means of the calmest and most tempe- 
 rate exposition ; while both Plato and the Indian philosophers had 
 
rant's life and philosophy. 281 
 
 founded their assertions merely upon a general perception of the 
 world, had advanced them as the direct utterance of their con- 
 sciousness, and presented them rather mythically and poetically 
 than philosophically and distinctly. In this respect they stand to 
 Kant in the same relation as the Pythagoreans Hicetas, Philolaus, 
 and Aristarchus, who already asserted the movement of the earth 
 round the fixed sun, stand to Copernicus. Such distinct knowl- 
 edge and calm, thoughtful exposition of this dream-like nature of 
 the whole world is really the basis of the whole Kantian philoso- 
 phy ; it is its soul and its greatest merit. He accomplished this 
 by taking to pieces the whole machinery of our intellect by means 
 of which the pihantasmagoria of the objective world is brought 
 about, and presenting it in detail with marvellous insight and abil- 
 ity. All earlier Western philosophy, appearing in comparison with- 
 the Kantian unspeakably clumsy, had failed to recognise that 
 truth, and had therefore always spoken just as if in a dream. 
 Kant first awakened it suddenly out of this dream ; therefore the 
 last sleepers (Mendelssohn) called him the "all-destroyer." He 
 showed that the laws which reign with inviolable necessity in ex- 
 istence, i. e., in experience generally, are not to he applied to de- 
 duce and explain existence itself; that thus the validity of these 
 laws is only relative, i. e. , only arises after existence ; the world 
 of experience in general is already established and present ; that 
 consequently these laws cannot be our guide when we come to the 
 explanation of the existence of the world and of ourselves. All 
 earlier Western philosophers had imagined that these laws, ac- 
 cording to which the phenomena are combined, and all of which — 
 time and space, as well as causality and inference — I comprehend 
 under the expression "the principle of sufficient reason, " — were 
 absolute laws conditioned by nothing, ceternce veritates ; that the 
 world itself existed only in consequence of and in conformity with 
 them ; and therefore that under their guidance the whole riddle of 
 the world must be capable of solution. The assumptions made 
 for this purpose, which Kant criticises under the name of the Ideas 
 of the reason, only served to raise the mere phenomenon, the work 
 of M&yd, the shadow world of Plato, to the one highest reality, to 
 put it in the place of the inmost and true being of things, and 
 thereby to make the real knowledge of this impossible; that is, in 
 a word, to send the dreamers still more soundly to sleep. Kant 
 exhibited these laws, and therefore the whole world, as conditioned 
 by the form of knowledge belonging to the subject ; from which it 
 
282 kant's life and philosophy. 
 
 followed, that however far one carried investigation and reasoning 
 under the guidance of these laws, yet in the principal matter, i. e., 
 in knowledge of the nature of the world in itself and outside the 
 idea, no step in advance was made, but one only moved like a 
 squirrel in its wheel. Thus, all the dogmatists may be compared 
 to persons who supposed that if they only went straight on long 
 enough they would come to the end of the world ; but Kant then 
 circumnavigated the world and showed that, because it is round, 
 one cannot get out of it by horizontal movement, but that yet by 
 perpendicular movement this is perhaps not impossible. We may 
 also say that Kant's doctrine affords the insight that we must seek 
 the end and beginning of the world, not without, but within us. 
 
AN ESTIMATE, OF KANT BY A SWEDEN- 
 BORGIAN. 
 
 (after THEODORE F. WRIGHT.') 
 
 IN all bis metaphysical work Kant was not pursuing a religious 
 course and was in fact becoming less and less of a Christian. 
 He was, however, no more contracted in his philosophical view of 
 the limits of reason than he was in all the ways of his life. " His 
 body was extremely emaciated, and at last it was dried like a pot- 
 sherd," said one who knew him well. He was hollow-chested, and 
 one shoulder was too low. Not five feet high, his bones were 
 small and weak, and his muscles still weaker (Stiickenburg, p. 93). 
 He had strong prejudice against the Jews {Jbid., p. 116). He took 
 no interest in other philosophers {Ibid., p. 124). Though he wrote 
 much in the field of theology, he knew almost nothing of theolo- 
 gians (Ibid., p. 359). He did not answer letters {Ibid., p. 127). 
 He held to bis views after rebutting facts were shown him, and 
 would contradict foreigners who spoke of their own countries in a 
 manner to interfere with his preconceived ideas {Ibid., p. 141). 
 He lived in the same small city with his two sisters, yet did not 
 speak to them for twenty-five years because of their inferior posi- 
 tion (Ibid., p. 182). He spoke contemptuously of women and was 
 especially hostile to those of any mental power (Ibid. , p. 784). One 
 of his jokes was that there can be no women in heaven, for it is 
 written that there was silence there for the space of half an hour 
 (Ibid., p. 187), — and this from a man who always did the talking 
 wherever he was and who listened to another with marked impa- 
 tience (Ibid., p. 141). He did not desire friendships, for "it is a 
 great burden to be tied to the fate of others and to be loaded with 
 their needs" (Ibid., p. 193). He said that he did not know the 
 meaning of the word "spirit" (Ibid., p. 240). With Hume he held 
 
 iThis amusing compilation of data concerning Kant's lite and personal- 
 ity appeared in tlaeNew Church Review (Boston) of January, igoi. 
 
284 KANT'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 that we have no knowledge of God (Ibid., p. ago). He saw no 
 use in revelation {Ibid., p. 335). He identified religion with mere 
 morality (Ibid., p. 338). He never attended church and spoke of 
 prayer as ridiculous (Ibid. , p. 354). His views against religion 
 led students to become mockers (Ibid., p. 358). His old age was 
 unhappy (Ibid., p. 425), and his rigidity of habits became repul- 
 sive in the last degree (Ibid., p. 435). He died February 12, 1804, 
 after fifteen years of mental decline. 
 
KANT'S LETTER TO HIS BROTHER.i 
 
 TRANSCRIPTION OF THE ORIGINAL. 
 
 Lieber Bruder ! 
 
 Bei dem Besuche, den Ueberbringer dieses, Herr Reimer, ein 
 Verwandter von Deiner Fran, meiner werthen SchwSgerin, bei 
 mir abgelegt hat, ermangle ich nicht, wassich meiner iiberh^uf ten 
 Besch^tigungen wegen nur in ausserordentlicben Fallen thun 
 lasst, mich bei Dir durch einen Brief in Erinnerung zu bringen. 
 Unerachtet dieser scheinbaren Gleicbgultigkeit babe ich an Dicb, 
 nicht allein so lange wir beiderseitig leben, oft genug, sondern 
 auch fiir meinen Sterbefall, der in meinem Alter von 68 Jahren 
 doch nicht mehr sehr entfernt sein kann, briiderlich gedacht. 
 Unsere zwei ubrigen, beide verwittweten, Schwestern sind, die 
 alteste, welche fiinf erwachsene und zum Theil schon verhei- 
 rathete Kinder hat, ganzlich durch mich, die andere, welche im 
 St. Georgenhospital eingekauft ist, durch meinen Zuschuss ver- 
 sorgt. Den Kindern der ersteren babe ich, bei ihrer anfanglichen 
 b^uslichen Einrichtung und auch nachher, meinen Beistand nicht 
 versagt ; so dass, was die Pflicht der Dankbarkeit, wegen der uns 
 von unsern gemeiuschaftlichen Eltern gewordenen Erziehung for- 
 dert, nicht versaumt wird. Wenn Du mir einmal von dem Zu- 
 stande Deiner eigenen Familie Nachricht geben willst, so wird es 
 mir angenehm sein. 
 
 Uebrigens bin ich, in Begrussung meiner mir sehr werthen 
 Schwagerin, mit unveranderlicher Zuneigung 
 
 Dein treuer Bruder 
 
 K6NIGSBERG, den 26. Januar 1792. I. Kant. 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 Dear Brother : — 
 
 Taking advantage of the visit which the bearer of this letter 
 Herr Reimer, a relative of your wife, my esteemed sister-in-law 
 ISee the facsimile of the GermaQ original on the opposite page. 
 
286 kant's letter to his brother. 
 
 has paid me, I do not omit to recall myself to your memory, 
 although owing to my over-burdening labors this is something that 
 I allow myself only in extraordinary cases. Notwithstanding this 
 apparent indifference, I have, however, frequently thought of you 
 with brotherly regard, not only for this present life, but also in 
 case of my death, which at my age of 68 years cannot be far dis- 
 tant. Of our two remaining widowed sisters, the eldest, who has 
 five adult children, some of whom are married, has been entirely 
 supported by me, and the younger, for whom admission to the St. 
 George's Hospital has been purchased, is also provided for. I 
 have also not refused assistance to the children of the former, on 
 their establishing their first homes, and even afterwards ; so that 
 there has been no neglect of the duty of gratitude that we owe to 
 our common parents for the education they gave us. If you will 
 inform me of the condition of your own family, I shall be gratified. 
 
 With regards to my much-esteemed sister-in-law, I remain, 
 with constant affection. 
 
 Your Faithful Brother, 
 
 I. Kant. 
 
 KoNiGSBERG, January 26, 1792. 
 
CHRONOLOGY OF KANT'S LIFE AND PUB- 
 LICATIONS.! 
 
 1724 Immanuel Kant born on 
 April 22. 
 
 1728 Lambert born. 
 
 1729 Lessing born. 
 
 1729 Mendelssohn born. 
 
 1730 Hamann born. 
 
 1732 Kant enters the Frideri- 
 cianum, an academy in 
 Konigsberg. 
 
 1735 Kant's brother Johann 
 Heinrich born. 
 
 1737 Kant's mother dies. 
 1740 Kant matriculates at the 
 University of Konigsberg 
 
 1740 Frederick II. ascends 
 the throne. 
 
 1740 Feder born. 
 
 1742 Garve born. 
 
 1744 Herder born. 
 1746 Kant's first publication : 
 Gedanken von der -wah- 
 ren Schdtzung der leben- 
 digen Krafte (Thoughts 
 on the True Measure- 
 ment of Living Forces). 
 
 1746 Kant's father dies. 
 
 1749 Goethe born. 
 
 1751 M. Knutzen dies. 
 
 1754 Christian Wolff dies. 
 
 1754 Investigation of the ques- 
 
 tion, Whether the earth 
 in its rotation about its 
 axis has suffered any al- 
 terations. 
 
 1754. Investigation of the ques- 
 tion, Whether the earth 
 is growing old. (Both 
 questions treated in the 
 KSnigsberger Nachr.). 
 
 175s Allgem. Naturgeschichte 
 und JTieorie des Him- 
 mels (General ilatural 
 History and Theory of 
 the Heavens). 
 
 1755 Kant takes his degree with 
 
 the treatise De Igne, and 
 qualifies as a university 
 lecturer with the treatise, 
 Princifiorumfrimorum 
 cognitionis meta^hysicce 
 nova dilucidatio. 
 1756 -1763 Seven Years 
 War. The Russians in 
 Konigsberg. 
 
 1756 Disputation on the treatise 
 
 Moncuiologia ^hysica. 
 1756 Three small essays in the 
 KSnigsberger Nachr., 
 
 1 From Paulsen's Life if Kant, Fromann's Klassiker der Fhilosafhie, Stutt- 
 gart, 1898. 
 
288 
 
 CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 on Earthquakes. (Evoked 
 by the Lisbon earthquake 
 
 of I75S-) 
 
 1756 New notes in elucidation 
 
 of the Theory of the 
 Winds. 
 
 1757 Outline and Announcement 
 
 of a. course of Lectures 
 on Physical Geography, 
 with a brief supplemen- 
 tary consideration of the 
 question whether the 
 west winds in our locality 
 are moist because of hav- 
 ing passed over a broad 
 stretch of sea. 
 
 1758 New Scientific Conception 
 
 of Motion and Rest. 
 
 1759 Some Tentative Considera- 
 
 tions of Optimism. 
 1759 Schiller born. 
 1762 Fichte born. 
 1762 Publication of Rous- 
 seau's Amile and Contrat 
 social. 
 
 1762 Die falsche S^itzfindig- 
 keit der vier s^Uogisti- 
 schen Figuren erwiesen 
 (The Erroneous Sophis- 
 try of the Four Syllogistic 
 Figures Demonstrated). 
 
 1762 Der einzig m'dgliche Be- 
 uieisgrund zu einer De- 
 monstration vom Da- 
 sein Gottes (The Only 
 Possible Basis of a Dem- 
 onstration of the Exist- 
 ence of God). 
 
 1762 Untersuchung ilber die 
 Deutlichkeit der Grund- 
 sdtze der natUrlichen 
 
 Theologie und Moral 
 (Researches on the Dis- 
 tinctness of the Princi- 
 ples of Natural Theology 
 and Morals). (Preis- 
 schrift der Berliner 
 Akademie, printed in 
 1764.) 
 
 1763 Versuch, den Begriff der 
 
 negativen Grffssen in 
 die Weltuieisheit einzu- 
 fuhren (Attempt to In- 
 troduce the Notion of 
 Negative Quantities into 
 Philosophy). 
 1763 F. A. Schultz dies. 
 
 1764 Versuch ilber die Krank- 
 
 heiten des Koffes (Essay 
 on the Diseases of the 
 Head.) {KSnigsh. Ztg.). 
 
 1764 Beobachtungen aber das 
 
 Gefilhl des Schonen und 
 Erhabenen. (Observa- 
 tions on the Feeling of 
 the Beautiful and the 
 Sublime). 
 
 1765 Information on the Plan 
 
 of his Lectures. 
 
 1766 Tr&ume eines Geister- 
 sehers, erlSutert durch 
 Trdume der Meta^hysik 
 (Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, 
 etc.). 
 
 1766 Gottsched dies. 
 1768 Von dem ersten Grunde 
 des Unterschiids der 
 Gegenden im Raum (On 
 the Fundamental Reason 
 for the Difference of Lo- 
 calities in Space). (Kiin. 
 Nachr.) 
 
CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 289 
 
 1770 Kant obtains his full pro- 
 fessorship in logic and 
 metaphysics. 
 1770 Disputatio de mundi sen- 
 sibilis atque intelligi- 
 bills forma et ;principiis. 
 1770 (Holbach) Syst^me de 
 - la nature. 
 
 1775 Von den verschiedenen 
 Racen des Menschen 
 (Ankiindigung der Vor- 
 lesungen liber fhysische 
 Geografhie). (On the 
 Different Races of Men.) 
 
 1776 Ueber das Dessauer Phi- 
 
 lanthrofie. (KSn. Ztg.J 
 
 1776 North American Dec- 
 laration of Independence. 
 
 1776 Hume dies. 
 
 1778 Voltaire dies. 
 
 1778 Rousseau dies. 
 
 1780 Joseph II. ascends the 
 throne. 
 
 1 78 1 Lessing dies. 
 
 1781 Kritik der reinen Ver- 
 nunft (Critique of Pure 
 Reason. 
 
 1783 Prolegomena su einer 
 jeden kunftigen Meta- 
 ^hysik, die als Wissen- 
 schaft uiird auftreten 
 kSnnen (Prolegomena to 
 Every Future Metaphys- 
 ics, etc.). 
 
 1784 Idee zu einer allgemeinen 
 
 Gesch. in ■weltbilrger- 
 Ucher Absicht (Ideas for 
 a Universal History, etc.). 
 1784 Beantwortung der Frage 
 Was ist Aufkldrung? 
 (Both the preceding ar- 
 
 ticles in the Berliner 
 
 Monalsschrift. ) 
 178s Criticisms of Herder's 
 
 Ideen zur Philos. der 
 
 Geschichte. (Jenaische 
 
 Litter aturztg.) 
 1785 Ueber Vulkane im Monde 
 
 (On Volcanoes in the 
 
 Moon). 
 1785 Von der Unrechtmdssig- 
 
 keit des Bilchernach- 
 
 drucks (On the Illegality 
 
 of Literary Piracy). 
 
 1785 Bestimmung des Begriffs 
 
 einer Menschenrace (De- 
 termination of the Con- 
 cept of a Race of Men). 
 1783 Grundlegung zur Meta- 
 fhysik der Sitten (Foun- 
 dation of the Metaphys- 
 ics of Morals). 
 
 1786 Mutmasslicher Anfang 
 
 der Menschengeschichte 
 (Presumable Origin of 
 Human History). {Berl 
 Monalsschrift. ) 
 
 1786 Was heisst sich im Den- 
 ken orientieren? (What 
 is the Meaning of Orien- 
 tation inThinking?) (Ber- 
 liner Monalsschrift. ) 
 
 1786 Meta;physische Anfangs- 
 grilnde der Natur-wis- 
 senschaften (Metaphys- 
 ical Rudiments of the 
 Natural Sciences). 
 1786 Frederick the Great 
 dies, Frederick William 
 II. ascends the throne. 
 1788 W5llner's religious 
 edict. 
 
2 go 
 
 CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 1788 Ueber den Gebrauch teleo- 
 logischer Prinzipien in 
 der Philoso^hie (On the 
 Use of Teleological Prin- 
 ciples in Philosophy). 
 (Deutsch. Merk.). 
 
 1788 Kritik der fraktischen 
 Vernunft (Critique of 
 Practical Reason). 
 1789 French Revolution. 
 
 1790 Kritik der Urteilskraft 
 (Critique of the Judg- 
 ment). 
 
 1790 Ueber Pkilosofihie Uber- 
 hau^t (erste Einl. zur 
 Kr. d. Urt.) (On Philos- 
 ophy in General). 
 
 1790 Ueber eine Entdeckung, 
 nach der alle neue Kri- 
 tik der reinen Vernunft 
 durch eine altere ent- 
 hehrlich gemacht Tjuer- 
 den soil (On a Discovery 
 by which, etc.). (Against 
 Eberhard). 
 
 1790 Ueber Schuiarmerei und 
 
 die Mittel dagegen (On 
 Gushing and the Means 
 for its Prevention). 
 
 1 79 1 Ueber das Misslingen 
 alter ^hilos. Versuche in 
 der Theodicee (On the 
 Failure of all Philosoph- 
 ical Attempts in Theod- 
 icy). (Bert. Mon.) 
 
 1792 Vbm radikalen BSsen (On 
 
 the Radically Bad). 
 {Berl. Mon.) 
 1792 The continuation of 
 the foregoing articles is 
 
 prohibited by the Berlin 
 censorship. 
 1793 Religion innerhalb der 
 Grenzen der blossen Ver- 
 nunft (Religion within 
 the Bounds of Mere Rea- 
 son). 
 
 1793 Ueber den Gemeinsfruch. 
 
 Das mag in der Theorie 
 rzchtig sein, taugt aber 
 nichtfilr die Praxis (On 
 the Maxim : Good in 
 Theory, but Bad in Prac- 
 tice). (Berl. Mon.) 
 
 1794 Etivas liber den Einjluss 
 
 des Mondes auf die 
 Witterung (On the In- 
 J9uence of the Moon on 
 the Weather). [Berliner 
 Mon.) 
 1794 Das Ende alter Dinge 
 (The End of all Things). 
 (Berl. Mon.) 
 
 1794 Cabinet order of the King 
 
 and Kant's promise to 
 write nothing more on re- 
 ligion. 
 1795 Peace of Basel. 
 
 1795 Zum ewigen Frieden (On 
 
 Universal Peace). 
 
 1796 Kant discontinues his lec- 
 
 tures. 
 
 1796 Von einem neuerdings er- 
 hobenen, vornehmen Ton 
 in der Philosofhie (On a 
 Recent Aristocratic Tone 
 in Philosophy). {Berl. 
 Mon.) 
 
 1796 Announcement of the ap- 
 proaching completion of 
 
CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 291 
 
 a' tract on Universal 
 Peace in Philosophy. 
 
 1797 Metafhysische Anfangs- 
 grUnde der Rechtslehre 
 (Metaphysical Rudiments 
 of Jurisprudence). 
 
 1797 Metafhysische Anfangs- 
 grllnde der Tugendlehre 
 (Metaphysical Rudiments 
 of Morals). 
 
 1797 Ueber ein vermeintes 
 Recht aus Menschenliebe 
 zu lilgen (On a Supposed 
 Right to Lie out of Love 
 for Man). 
 
 1797 Frederick William II. 
 dies and is succeeded by 
 Frederick William III. 
 WSlIner dismissed. 
 
 1798 Ueber die Buchmacherei. 
 
 Zvjei Brief e an Fr. Ni- 
 
 colai (On Bookmaking 
 Two Letters to Fr. Nico- 
 lai). 
 
 1798 Der Streit der Fakultaten 
 (The Battle of the Facul- 
 ties). 
 
 1798 Anthropologic in frag- 
 tnatischer Hinsicht. 
 
 1800 Logic, edited by Jasche. 
 
 1802 Physical Geography, ed- 
 
 ited by Rink. 
 
 1803 Pedagogy, edited by Rink. 
 
 1804 On the Prize Question of 
 
 the Berlin Academy : 
 What Real Progress has 
 Metaphysics made inGer- 
 many, since the Times 
 of Leibnitz and Wolff? 
 Edited by Rink. 
 1804 Kant dies on February 12. 
 
INDEX TO KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 (Pages 1-163.) 
 
 Accidents, 99. 
 
 Actions as appearances subject to 
 necessity, 113. 
 
 Actuality, 66. 
 
 Addition and arithmetic, 36. 
 
 Air is elastic, 57-59. 
 
 Alchemy, 140. 
 
 Analogy, cognition by, 129. 
 
 Analytical and synthetical, 14-15, 17, 
 18, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27. 
 
 Analytics and dialectics, 27. 
 
 Anschauung (visualisation), 17, 18, 21, 
 30, 34, 120, 126, X40, 146 ; and mathe- 
 matics, 32. 
 
 Antecedent, 53 ; and consequent, 72. 
 
 Anthropomorphism, 128, 130; avoided, 
 131. 
 
 Antinomy, 105 et seq., 108. 
 
 Apodeictic, 18, 33; and necessary, 35; 
 and a priori, 144 ; certainty of meta- 
 physics, 157. 
 
 Appearance, properties of a body be- 
 long to, 44 ; and insufficiency, 126. 
 
 Appearances, space the form of, 40; 
 geometry prescribes to, 41; objects 
 are mere, 42 ; and sensuous per- 
 ception, 45; and things in them, 
 selves, 75 ; actions as, subject to 
 necessity, 113. 
 
 Application oia^rioriio experience, 
 
 34. 
 A priori^ 70; knowledge and meta- 
 physics, 14 ; and synthetical, 15, 26, 
 S9, 33 ; judgment (body is extended), 
 16; necessity, x6 ; and pure mathe- 
 matics, 17, 32; the materials of 
 metaphysics, 23 ; and necessity^aS; 
 at the bottom of metaphysics, 31 ; 
 and its application to experience, 
 
 34; anticipating actuality, ■ 35 ; at 
 the basis of the empirical, 36 ; apo- 
 deictically certain, 37; intuition 
 and three dimensions, 37 ; is it a 
 phantasm ? 47; things not cognised, 
 50; principles, 60; rules, 64; origin 
 of pure concepts, 73 ; basis of the 
 possibility of laws, 80; laws, basis 
 of the possibility of nature, 81; 
 geometrical laws, 83 ; and system; 
 85 ; understanding determined, 137; 
 concepts, sources of, 139; definite 
 and compact, 141 ; and apodeicti- 
 cal, 144; transcendent and tran- 
 scendental, 150, 151 ; missing in 
 Berkeley, 152. 
 
 Aristotle, 86. 
 
 Arithmetic and addition, 36. 
 
 Association, law of, 4. 
 
 Astrology, 140. 
 
 Axioms, 60. 
 
 Baumgarten, ig. 
 Beattie, 5, 6. 
 
 Beginning, the world has a, 105. 
 Being, a, conceived for comprehend- 
 ing the connexion, order, and unity 
 
 of the world, X17. 
 Beings of understanding, Z12. 
 Berkeley, 151, 152; his idealism, 49; 
 
 a Priori missing in, 152; dogmatic 
 
 idealism of, 153. 
 Bodies, primary qualities of, 43-44; 
 
 mere representations, 43, 
 Body, thing in itself, as, 103. 
 Boundary, theology (natural) looks 
 
 beyond, 134 ; and limits, 133. 
 Bounds, not limits, 123 ; and limits, 
 
 Z2S ; of pure reason, 120, 124. 
 
294 
 
 INDEX TO KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 Categories, 86j 87, 88, 89, go, Z05 ; of 
 deeper meaning, 76; and under- 
 standing, 92; and logical functions, 
 94. 
 
 Causality, 22; and succession, iii. 
 
 Cause, 4, 53, gS ; a pure concept of 
 the understanding, 58; is super- 
 added, 59; and effect, 66; of con- 
 nexions in the world, 131. 
 
 Challenge, 144. 
 
 Challenging the critic, 157. 
 
 Chimeras, ^. 
 
 Chisels and engraver's needle, 6-7. 
 
 Circle, law of the, 82. 
 
 Cognition, 45 ; of the understanding, 
 93 ; analogy, 129 ; insufficiency of 
 the, Z36. 
 
 Common sense, 6, 27, 29, 145; no right 
 to judge in metaphysics, 7 ; appeal 
 to, Z44; and metaphysics, 146. 
 
 Community, 66. 
 
 Composite, everything is, 106. 
 
 Concepts, of reason, 95 ; having their 
 origin in reason, zi8. 
 
 Conflict of reason, 116. 
 
 Congruent, the two hands not, 39. 
 
 Connexions in the world, cause of, 
 131. { 
 
 Consciousness, subject of, 103. 
 
 Consequent and antecedent, 72. 
 
 Construction and experiencef 146. 
 
 Contradiction, law of, 16, 22, 27; and 
 synthetical judgments, 15. 
 
 Contrast of right and left, 39. 
 
 Cosmological idea, X04, 105, 
 
 Crazy-quilt of metaphysics, 154. 
 
 Criteria of truth, universal and nec- 
 essary laws, 152. 
 
 Criterion of truth, Z03. 
 
 Critical idealism, 49, 153. 
 
 Critical question, 24. 
 
 Criticism, standard given by, 163; 
 and metaphysics, 162. 
 
 Critique, contains plan of metaphys- 
 ics, 139; justified, 158; whoever 
 has once tasted, etc., 140. 
 
 Crusius's compromise,' 81. 
 
 Degree, 66, 68. 
 
 Descartes, 48 ; his sceptical idealism, 
 153. 
 
 Determinabiltty and necessity, 114 
 Dialectics and analytics, 27. 
 Difference of equal figures, 38-39. 
 Diffuseness of the plan, 8. 
 Dogmatics, downfall of, 141. 
 Dogmatic slumber, Kant's, 7. 
 Dogmatic twaddle, 140. 
 Dogmatism and scepticism, 24, 132. 
 Dreaming idealism, 49. 
 
 Effect and cause, 66. 
 
 Effect happens in time, izi. 
 
 Ego, 100, Z03. 
 
 Eleatic school, 151. 
 
 Empirical idealism, 48, 
 
 Empirical intuition, 33. 
 
 Empirical judgments, z6, S4i 55- 
 
 Engraver's needle, chisels and, 6-7. 
 
 Equal figures, difference of, 38-39, 
 
 Experience, 16, 57, 58, 63 ; geometry 
 holds all possible, 46; illusion in 
 transgressing, 48; and things in 
 themselves, 51; objects of pos- 
 sible, 53 ; judgments of, 54, 55, 57. 
 62, 63; possibility of, 60; intuitions 
 and judgments, 62 ; understanding 
 makes it possible, 84; analogy of, 
 zoz ; and the real, zo2 ; things in 
 themselves the basis of, X24, and ' 
 construction, Z46; truth in, 151, 
 
 Facility of solution, 28. 
 
 Faculty of beginning from itself, 
 freedom a, ii2-xz5. 
 
 Fiction, previous to our acquaint- 
 ance, space would be mere, 41. 
 
 Foam, metaphysics like, 21. 
 
 Formal, 104. 
 
 Form, of intuition, a priori^ 35 ; of 
 sensibility, pure intuition a, 36; 
 without perception remains, Z27. 
 
 Four ideas of reason, Z07. 
 
 Freedom, ZZ4; and nature, 106, a 
 faculty of beginning from itself, 
 X12-X15 ; and reason, X13 ; rescued, 
 practical, IZ4 ; natural necessity 
 and, 1Z5. 
 
 Functions of the understanding, 60. 
 
 Fundamental principles, 64. 
 
 Geometry, and space, 36; necessarily 
 valid of space, 40 : objects coincide 
 
INDEX TO rant's PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 295 
 
 with, 41; prescribes to appear- 
 ances, 41 ; holds all possibler expe- 
 rience, 46. 
 
 Geometrical laws, 83. 
 
 Geometrical sources, 83. 
 
 Gesetztttassigkeit, 52. 
 
 God. {Sbb Being.) 
 
 Gotkaische gelehrte Zeiiutig; 156. 
 
 Gdttingensche gelehrten Anzeigen^ 149. 
 
 Hand, right and left, 39, 40. 
 
 Helices, symmetric, 40. 
 
 History of philosophy, 1. 
 
 Horace, 3, 27. 
 
 Hnme, David, 3, 4, 6, 7, zo, it), 21, 28, 
 71,121,127, 130, 132; his problem, 
 5i 8i 73; his spark of Ueht, 7; his 
 doubts, 9, 70. 
 
 Hyperphysical, 52. 
 
 Idealism, 44, 150, 151 ; Kant's, 43-44 ; 
 charges of, 48 ; empirical, 48 ; tran- 
 scendental, 4S, 49 ; critical, 49, 153 ; 
 dreaming, 49 ; of Berkeley, 49, 153 ; 
 visionary, 49; Cartesian or mate- 
 rial, 103, 104 ; mystical, 152 ; of 
 Descartes, sceptical, 153. 
 
 Ideality of space and time, 47, 
 
 Idea of nnity system, 1x9, 
 
 Ideas, reason the source of, 92 ; theo- 
 logical, 117; transcendental, their 
 origin in reason, 118, 137. 
 
 Illusion and truth, 152. 
 
 Illusion in transgressing experience, 
 48. 
 
 Illusory metaphysics, 139. 
 
 Imagination, 78. 
 
 Immaterial being, 125. 
 
 Incidental and necessary, xo6. 
 
 Incomprehensibility, 118 ; of causal- 
 ity, 70. 
 
 Infinite, the world is, 106. 
 
 Infinite number of parts, zio. 
 
 Insufficiency and appearance, 126, 
 
 Intelligence, supreme, 137. 
 
 Intelligible world, 'jy. 
 
 Internal constitution of things never 
 revealed, 123. 
 
 Internal sense and soul, 104. 
 
 Intuited, everything as it appears, 38. 
 
 Intuite, how to, apriorU 34- 
 
 Intuition, 33, 35, 37; at the founda 
 tion of mathematics, 35, 38; afri- 
 ori, and three dimensions, 37; space 
 the form of the external, 40; ob- 
 jects given in, 42; of space and 
 time, appearance, 48 ; none beyond 
 sensibility, 77; universal form of, 
 84. 
 
 Intuitive, 33. 
 
 Judgment defined, 63 ; empirical, 54 
 55 ; of experience, 54, 55, 57, 62, 63; 
 of perception, 55, 57; synthetical 
 59 ; two sorts, X48. 
 
 Kant's dogmatic slumber, 7. 
 
 Labor of research, 28. 
 
 Law, conformity to, 52 et seq., 103; 
 of the circle, 82; reason prescribes 
 the, 118; reason's production, 118. 
 
 Laws, subjective, 53 ; of nature, their 
 sources, 54; universal, 54; of na- 
 ture, particular and universal, 81; 
 of nature, not in space, 83 ; univer- 
 sal and necessary, criteria of truth, 
 152. 
 
 Legislation of nature in ourselves, 
 80. 
 
 Legislative, the a priori is, 
 
 Leibnitz, 3. 
 
 Limits, not bounds, 123 ; contain ne- 
 gations, 125 ; and bounds, 125 ; and 
 boundary, I33- 
 
 Locke, 3, zg. 43. 
 
 Logical functions and categories, 94. 
 
 Logical table, 6x. 
 
 Longwindedness of the work, zo. 
 
 Materialism, rash assertions destroy, 
 
 137- 
 
 Mathematical judgments, z6. 
 
 Mathematicians were philosophers, 
 41. 
 
 Mathematics, nature of, 33; apriori, 
 32; and Ansckauung^ 32; and vis- 
 ual form, 32 ; how possible, 32 et 
 seq. ; intuitions at the foundation 
 of 35t 38; applied to nature, 69; 
 must be referred to appearances, 
 73; and metaphysics, 9z. 
 
2g6 
 
 INDEX TO KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 Maxims, 114. 
 
 Mental space renders physical space 
 possible, 42. 
 
 Metaphysicians, oratory of, zg ; sus- 
 pended, 29. 
 
 Metaphysics, 135 ; whether possible, 
 1-3, 20, 24 ; impossible according to 
 Hume, 4; not every one is bound 
 to study, II ; must satisfy the de- 
 mands, 12; knowledge of, lying be- 
 yond experience, 13 ; and a priori 
 knowledge, 14; sources of, 13-14; 
 like foam, 21; the materials of , a 
 priori^ 23 ; and synthetical proposi- 
 tions, 24 ; and synthetic a priori 
 propositions, 26-27; difficulty of, 28; 
 and transcendental philosophy, 30; 
 aPriori^X the bottom of, 31 ; as a 
 science, 31, 147 ; young thinkers 
 partial to, 78; and mathematics, 91; 
 how possible? gz; grounds of, 138; 
 critique contains plan of, 139 ; illu- 
 sorji 139; of decay, 141; will never 
 be given up, 142 ; and common 
 sense, 146; crazy-quilt of, 154; as- 
 sertions of, world tired of, 155; 
 standard of, 156; apodeictic cer- 
 tainty of, 157; and criticism, 162. 
 
 Nature, defined, 50, 52, 54; science of, 
 precedes physics, 51, 65; sources of 
 its laws, 54; system of, 64; its uni- 
 versal laws cognised a priori^ 64; 
 mathematics applied to, 6g ; how 
 possible, 7g ; the totality of rules, 
 79; legislation of, in ourselves, 80; 
 fz j^rzidW laws basis of the possibil- 
 ity of, 81; laws of, particular and 
 universal, 81; its laws not in space, 
 83 ; and freedom, ic6. 
 
 Necessary, 62; and apodeictic, 35; 
 
 universality and objective validity, 
 
 56 ; and incidental, zo6. 
 Necessary Being, zi6. 
 Necessity, 67; of habit, 4; (according 
 
 to Hume) a long habit, 28 ; and a. 
 
 priori^ 28 ; actions as appearances 
 
 subject to, Z13; and determinabil- 
 
 ity, ZZ4; natural, and freedom, ZZ5; 
 
 unconditional, 136. 
 
 Noumena, (things in themselves), 72, 
 76, 97 ; and creations of the under- 
 standing, 75 ; as the void, 123. 
 
 Objective, 55 et seq. 
 
 Objective validity and necessary uni- 
 versality, 56. 
 
 Objects, coincide with geometry, 41; 
 are mere appearances, 42; given in 
 intuition, 42; of possible experi- 
 ence, 53; and things in themselves, 
 zii ; unknown, 56. 
 
 Obscurity, 12. 
 
 Ontology, go. 
 
 Oratory of metaphysicians, 29. 
 
 Oswald, 5. 
 
 Ought and reason, 1Z3. 
 
 Particular ia^ 60. 
 
 Perception, judgments of, 55, 57. 
 
 Permanence of substances, ioi-jo2. 
 
 Phantasm, is the a priori a? 47, 
 
 Phenomena, subjective basis of, 42; 
 in space, 102. 
 
 Philosophers, mathematicians were 
 41. 
 
 Philosophy, history of, 1. 
 
 Physical space, mental space renders 
 it possible, 42. 
 
 Physics, preceded by Science of Na- 
 ture, 51. 
 
 Physiological table, 6z. 
 
 Plan of the work, analytical, 11. 
 
 Plainer, zi8. 
 
 Plurativa judicia^ 60. 
 
 Popular, I might have made my ex- 
 position, zo. 
 
 Popularity and Prolegomena, 8-9. 
 
 Possibility, 66. 
 
 Practical freedom rescued, Z14. 
 
 Predicables, 87. 
 
 Predicates, 99 ; belonging to appear- 
 ance, 43. 
 
 Priestley, S' 
 
 Primary qualities of bodies, 43-44. 
 
 Prolegatnena, for teachers, z ; and 
 popularity, 8-9; analytical, 25; prep- 
 aratory, 25 ; as an outline, Z59. 
 
 Properties of a body belong to ap- 
 pearance, 44. 
 
INDEX TO KANT's PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 297 
 
 Property, similarity of sensation to, 
 44. 
 
 Pseudo-science, 140. 
 
 Pure concepts, of the understanding, 
 60, 63, 64 ; table of the, 61 ; a priori 
 origin of, 73 ; of reason, 93. 
 
 Pure intuition, 33 ; a form of sensi- 
 bility, 36. 
 
 Pure reason, 94, 97. 
 
 Quantity, 65, 68 ; and things in them- 
 selves, 67 ; of the world, log. 
 Questions, four, 31. 
 
 Real and experience, the, xo2. 
 
 Reason, the source of ideas, 92 ; and 
 understanding, 92; pure concepts 
 of, 93i 94i 9Si 97 ; divided with it- 
 self, 107 ; four ideas of, 107 ; and 
 freedom, 113; and ought, 113; con- 
 flict of, 116 ; concepts having their 
 origin in, iiS; prescribes the law, 
 Z18 ; at variance with itself, 1x9; 
 bounds of pure, 120, 124, 128; finds 
 no satisfaction in itself, 124; teaches 
 nothing concerning the thing in it- 
 self 134 ; freed by the theological 
 idea, 136. 
 
 Red and vermillion, 44. 
 
 Reid, 5. 
 
 Rules, 64; a priori, 64. 
 
 Scepticism, 21, 121; and dogmatism, 
 
 24. 
 
 Science of nature, 65. 
 
 Scholia, 13S, 139 et seq. 
 
 Self, the thinking, 100. 
 
 Sensation, similarity of, to property, 
 44. 
 
 Senses, business of the, 62. 
 
 Sensibility, form of, and a priori^ 35; 
 time and space conditions of our, 
 37; no intuition beyond, ']'^. 
 
 Sensible world no sham. 44. 
 
 Sensuous perception and appear- 
 ances, 45. 
 
 Similart^ty of sensation to property, 
 44- 
 
 Simple and composite, 106. 
 
 Skepticism and dogmatism, 132. 
 
 Solution, facility of, 28, 
 
 Soul, 96, 100; as a substance, loi, 102, 
 IDS ; and internal sense* Z04 ; the 
 nature of, Z2i, 136 ; vacuity in the, 
 160. 
 
 Sources of a/^'wrz" concepts, 139. 
 
 Space, 122; and Time, 35; and geom- 
 etry, 36 ; and time conditions of 
 our sensibility, 37 ; three dimen- 
 sions, 37; and time, mere forms, 
 38 ; and time presupposed, 38 ; the 
 form of appearances, 40; the form 
 of the external intuition, 40; would 
 he mere fiction previous to our ac- 
 quaintance, 41 ; mental renders 
 physical possible, 42; and time and 
 things in themselves, 47; and time, 
 ideality of, 47; and time, intuitions 
 of, appearance, 48 ; not a store of 
 laws, 84 ; phenomena in, 102 ; and 
 time belong to appearances, 15a. 
 
 Spark of light, Hume's, 7. 
 
 Standard given by criticism, 163. 
 
 Subjective basis of phenomena, 42. 
 
 Subjective laws, 53. 
 
 Subsistence, 70. 
 
 Substance, 66, 98, lOo; of things, 99; 
 permanence of, X01-102; soul as a, 
 zoi, 102, zos. 
 
 Succession, 66, 72 ; and causality, zzz. 
 
 Sufficient reason, never been proved, 
 143. 
 
 Sun, shining on stone, 59, 63 ; the 
 cause of heat, 72. 
 
 Superadded, cause is, 59. 
 
 Supreme Being, 96, 125, 126, Z27, X2g, 
 130, Z3Z, 
 
 Supreme Cause, zsz, 132. 
 
 Supreme intelligence, Z37. 
 
 Supreme Reason, 132. 
 
 Symmetric helices, 40. 
 
 Synthetical, and analytical, Z4-1S, z8, 
 22, 23, 25, 26, 27 ; and apriori, z5 
 26, 29, 33 ; Judgments and the law 
 of Contradiction, Z5, 59; of 7-I-5 
 = 12, 17 ; propositions and meta- 
 physics, 24. 
 
 System, of nature, 64; and a priori, 
 85 ; idea of unity, Z19. 
 
 Teachers, Prolegomena for, i. 
 Test, Z57, z6i. 
 
298 
 
 INDEX TO rant's PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 Theological idea, 117; reason freed 
 by the, 136. 
 
 Theology (natural) looks beyond the 
 boundary, 134. 
 
 Thing in itself, as body, 103 ; reason 
 teaches nothing concerning, 134. 
 
 Things in themselves, 53, 70, 120, i!i, 
 122 ; and space and time, 47 ; cog- 
 nition of impossible, so; under- 
 standing must conform to, 50 ; and 
 experience, 51; and quantity, 67; 
 (noumena), 72, 76; serve to deci- 
 pher appearances, 73 ; and appear- 
 ances, 7s; and objects, ill; the 
 basis of experience, 124. 
 
 Things, unknown in themselves, 43 ; 
 substance of, gg ; never revealed, 
 internal constitution of, X23. 
 
 Thinking defined, 62. 
 
 Thinking self, the, 100. 
 
 Time and Space, 35; conditions of 
 our sensibility, 37; mere forms, 38 ; 
 presupposed, 38 ; belong to appear- 
 ances, IJ2. 
 
 Transcendent, 92, 104; transcenden- 
 tal, a priori and, 150, 151, 
 
 Transcendental, philosophy and met- 
 apbysics, 30; problem, 32 et seq,; 
 idealism, 48, 49 ; philosophy, sys- 
 tem of, 87; ideas, their origin in 
 reason, 1x8; a. priori and tran- 
 scendent, 150, X5X, 
 
 Truth, and dreaming, 45 ; criterion 
 of, 103, 149 ; in experience, 151 ; and 
 illusion, i;2. 
 
 Understanding, must conform to 
 things in themselves, 50 ; functions 
 of the, 60; pure concepts of the, 
 60, 63 ; table of the pure concepts 
 of the, 61 ; business of the, 62 ; crea- 
 tions of, and noumena, 75; vaga- 
 ries of the, 78 ; constitution of our, 
 79; prescribes laws to nature, 82; 
 laws inhere in the, 83 ; makes ex- 
 perience possible, 84; and cate- 
 gories, 92; and reason, 92; cogni- 
 tions of the, 93; beings of, ii2; 
 
 - world of, I2S ; systematic unity be- 
 longs to, 13S. 
 
 Unity a mode of cognition, iig. 
 
 Universality, necessary, 55, 
 
 Universal laws, 54 ; laws of nature, 
 cognised a priori, 64. 
 
 Universal validity, 69. 
 
 Universally valid, 62. 
 
 Vacuity in the soul, x6o. 
 Vagaries of the understanding, 78. 
 Virgil, 12. 
 
 Visionary idealism, 49. 
 Visual form and mathematics, 32. 
 Visualisation {Anschauung) , 18, 2X. 
 Void, the, that of which we can know 
 nothing, 125. 
 
 Weckjelwirkung, 66. 
 Wisdom incarnate, 2. 
 Wolf, xg. 
 
 World, X28 ; questions of its duration 
 and quantity, 122. 
 
INDEX TO THE ARTICLE ON KANT'S PHI- 
 LOSOPHY. 
 
 (Pages 167-240.) 
 
 A^aghosha, 228. 
 
 After-image, 224. 
 
 Agnosticism, 237. 
 
 Amit&bba, 228. 
 
 Ansckauungt 184, 187. 
 
 Antinomies, 221, 237 ; Kant's, 195 et 
 
 seq.; not true antinomies, 197. 
 A posteriori s^nd a priori, 181, 182. 
 Appearance, two meanings of, 232; 
 
 time and space appertain to, 231, 
 
 232. 
 Apriort, ig8; not innate, 181; and a 
 
 posteriori, x8i, 182; purely formal, 
 
 207; has objective value, 214. 
 Apriority, general applicability, 226, 
 Aristotle, 169, X78. 
 Ar0pa, 228. 
 Asceticism, 211. 
 
 Berkeley, 177 ; bis idealism, 175 ; bis 
 philosophy, 199; and Kant, 210, 
 
 Cartesian syllogism, the, x6g. 
 Categories and modes of existence, 
 
 219' 
 Causation, 200 et seq. 
 Cause and reason, 201 et seq. 
 Christ, 212. 
 Clifford, 2x6 ; on the thing in itself, 
 
 237. 
 Clusters, things are, 217. 
 Color-blind, 228. 
 Confucius, 212. 
 Constructions and mathematical 
 
 theorems, 2is> 
 Construction, world of senses is a, 
 
 334. 
 
 Cosmos, 221 et seq. 
 Critique o/Pure Reason^ 175. 
 
 Dasein and Sein, 227. 
 Delphic maxim, x68. 
 Descartes, 169. 
 Dictates of our mind, 207. 
 Divisibility of line, infinite, 2x6. 
 Dogmatism, 172. 
 
 Edmunds, Albert J., x88, X89, xg2. 
 Ego, metaphysical, X70. 
 Empirical, 180. 
 Extension, 225. 
 
 Feder, 175. 
 
 Flux of things, 218. 
 
 Formal, and the sensory, the, 208; 
 constructed, the purely, 2x5. 
 
 Formal cognition the key to mys- 
 teries, 227. 
 
 Formal knowledge gives system, 
 purely, 226. 
 
 Formal sciences, the organ of cogni- 
 tion, 212. 
 
 Formal theorems, general, 207. 
 
 Form both subjective and objective, 
 2x2 et seq. 
 
 Garve, 175. 
 
 Generalisations, origin of, 2ig. 
 
 God, Z78, 221 et seq., 228; the world- 
 order, 239. 
 
 God problem, 237 et seq. 
 
 Golden Rule, 2x2. 
 
 GSttingenscke Gelehrien Anseigen, 
 175. 
 
300 
 
 INDEX TO "KANT'S PHILOSOPHY," 
 
 Heine, Heinrich, 173. 
 Homaloidal, 233. 
 
 Hume, 171 ; his problem, 198, xgg, ^0 
 at seq. 
 
 Ideal and subjective, 206, 214. 
 Idealism and realism, 222-223. 
 Ideality, of space and time, 187; not 
 
 subjectivity, 204 et seq. 
 Image, 184 ; after-, 224. 
 Infinite divisibility of line, 216. 
 Innate ideas. 182, 200. 
 Innate not aprtorit z8i. 
 Intuition, 184. 
 Inventor a finder, the, 220. 
 
 Jacobi, 223. 
 
 Kant, his philosophical reform, 171; 
 his personal traits, 173; his indig- 
 nation, 177; his terms, 178; on meta- 
 physics, 178-179, 195; on reality,i87; 
 and Swedenborg, x88 et seq.; his 
 antinomies, 195 et seq.; his prob- 
 lem, xg8; puzzled by the a priori ^ 
 203 et seq,; and Berkeley, 210 ; his 
 conception of morality, 211 ; on 
 space and time, 231 ; his definition 
 of things in themselves, 235. 
 
 Kantism, moral aspect of| 210 et seq, 
 
 Lao-Tze, 212, 228. 
 Laws, 218, 
 
 Leibnitz, 189, zgo, 195. 
 Lichtenberg, 170. 
 Locke, 171, 200. 
 Logos, 228. 
 
 Mach, Ernst, 233. 
 
 Mathematical theorems and con- 
 structions, 215. 
 
 Measure of motion (Time}, 216. 
 
 Mental construction and straight 
 line, 234. 
 
 Metaphysics, 178 ; the old, 172 ; Kant 
 on 178-179, 195 ; sources of, 179. 
 
 Mind dictates, our, 207, 
 
 Mind, like the spider's thread, 206. 
 
 Modes of existence and categories, 
 2ig. 
 
 Morality, Kant's conception of, 211, 
 Mundus intelligibilis, 179, 228. 
 
 Naturalists of Greece, 167. 
 
 Nature, uniformities of, 205. 
 
 Neumann, 196. 
 
 Nirv3.na, 228. 
 
 Nomenclature is arbitrary, 222. 
 
 Norms of superreal, 227 et seq, 
 
 Noumena, 228 et seq.; represents 
 
 things, 229, 
 Noumenon, and phenomenon, 180- 
 
 181 ; space-conception a, 234. 
 
 Objectified, every sentient suibject, 
 230; subject, the, 225, 226, 231. 
 
 Objective and subjective, 216, 217. 
 
 Objectivity of space and time, 230 et 
 seq. 
 
 Objects, what are they ? 224. 
 
 Organ of cognition, formal sciences 
 the, 212. 
 
 Paulsen, 173, 176, 177, 
 Phenomenon and noumenon, 180-181 
 Philosophy, love of wisdom, 168; 
 
 practical, 167, 
 Photographer's camera, 184, 
 Physiological space, 233. 
 Plato, 236. 
 
 Fi'olegomena, 177, 202 et seq. 
 Pure, 182. 
 
 Real, 224, 
 
 Realism and idealism, 222-^23. 
 
 Real time and space, 229. 
 
 Reason, and cause, 201 et seq.; and 
 
 understanding, z8o. 
 Red and vermillion, 209 et seq. 
 Religion, the sensory in, 211. 
 
 Scholasticism, 168-169. 
 Schopenhauer, 197, 223, 236 ; his Will, 
 
 237. 
 Sein and Dasein^ 227. 
 Self-perception, 224. 
 Sensations, subjective, 228, 
 Senses, world of, a construction, 234. 
 Sensory, the formal and the, 208; in 
 
 religion, the, 21X. 
 Sewall, Frank, 189. 
 
INDEX TO "KANt's PHILOSOPHY." 
 
 301 
 
 Socrates, x68. 
 
 Sophists, the, 16S. 
 
 Soul, 221 etseq.; Swedenborg on the, 
 193- 
 
 Space and time, not objects, 1S7; 
 ideality of, 187; objectivity of, 225, 
 226, 230 et seq.; real, 229 ; forms of 
 any existence, 131; Kant on, 231; 
 appertain to appearances, 231, 232. 
 
 Space-conception, and space, 233 ; a 
 noumenon, 234. 
 
 Space, physiological, 233 ; and space- 
 conception, 233- 
 
 Spider's thread, mind like the, 206. 
 
 Spinoza, 179. 
 
 Straight line and mental construc- 
 tion, 234> 
 
 Subject, 229; representation of the, 
 224; in itself empty, 225; the ob- 
 jectified, 226; objectified, every 
 sentient, 230, 231. 
 
 Subjective, and ideal, 206, 214 ; and 
 objective, 2x6, 217. 
 
 Subjectivity, not ideality, 204 et seq.; 
 science eliminates, 235* 
 
 Succession, 217, 225. 
 
 Suchness, 208 et seq. 
 
 Superreal, norms of, 227 et seq. 
 
 Swedenborg, "Emanuel, 170, 228; and 
 Kant, 188 et seq.; on the soul, 193. 
 
 Terms, Kant's, 178. 
 
 Theology, 178. 
 
 Thing in itself, Clifford on the, 237. 
 
 Things in themselves, 234 et seq.; 
 
 Kant's definition of, 235 ; a vagary 
 
 236. 
 Things, represented by noumena 
 
 229 : are clusters, 217 ; flux of, 2x8; 
 and unities, 221. 
 
 Thisness, 208 et seq. 
 Tilly, Frank, 175. 
 
 Time and space, ideality of, 187; not 
 objects, 1S7; objectivity of, 223, 226, 
 
 230 et seq.; real, 229 ; appertain to 
 appearances, 231, 232; forms of any 
 existence, 231 ; Kant on, 231. 
 
 Time (measure of motion), 216. 
 
 Transcendental, 182 ; and transcend- 
 ent, X83. 
 
 Transcendent and transcendental, 
 183. 
 
 Tufts, James H., 173. 
 
 Twaddle, dogmatical, 172. 
 
 Twice two, not one, 2x8. 
 
 Understanding and reason, 180. 
 Uniformities, 218; of nature, 205. 
 Unities and things, 221. 
 
 Vaihinger, 189. 
 
 Vermillion and red, 2og et seq. 
 
 Watts, James, 220. 
 Weber, Prof. A., 175. 
 Windelband, 173. 
 Wolf, 170. 
 
 Zeno, 2x6.