It can easily be shown by literal quotations that there were distinct

tendencies in Kant, especially in the first edition of his principal

work, toward a radical idealism which doubts or denies not merely the

cognizability, but also the existence of objects external to the subject

and its representations, and which degrades the thing in itself to a mere

thought in us, or completely does away with it (_e.g._, "The representation

of an object as a thing in general is not only insufficient, but, ...

independently of empirical conditions, in itself contradictory "). But

these expressions indicate only a momentary inclination toward such a view,

not a binding avowal of it, and they are outweighed by those in which

idealism is more or less energetically rejected. That which according to

Kant _exists outside the representation of the individual_ is twofold: (1)

the unknown things in themselves with their problematical characteristics,

as the ground of phenomena; (2) the phenomena "themselves" with their

knowable immanent laws, and their relations in space and time, as possible

representations. When I turn my glance away from the rose its redness

vanishes, since this predicate belongs to it only in so far and so long

as it acts in the light on my visual apparatus. What, then, is left? That

thing in itself, of course, which, when it appears to me, calls forth in me

the intuition of the rose. But there is still something else remaining--the

phenomenon of the rose, with its size, its form, and its motion in the

wind. For these are predicates which must be attributed to the phenomenon

itself as the object of my representation. If the rose, as determined in

space and time, vanished when I turned my head away, it could not, unless

intuited by a subject, experience or exert effects in space and time, could

not lose its leaves in the wind and strew the ground with its petals.

Perception and thought inform me not merely concerning events of which I am

a witness, but also of others which have occurred, or which will occur, in

my absence. The process of stripping the leaves from the rose has actually

taken place as a phenomenon and does not first become real by my subsequent

representation of it or inference to it. The things and events of the

phenomenal world exist both before and after my perception, and are

something distinct from my subjective and momentary representations of

them. The space and time, however, in which they exist and happen are

not furnished by the intuiting individual, but by the supra-individual,

_transcendental consciousness_ or generic reason of the race. The

phenomenon thus stands midway between its objective ground (the absolute

thing in itself) and the subject, whose common product it is, as a relative

thing in itself, as a reality which is independent of the contingent and

changing representation of the individual, empirical subject, which is

dependent for its form on the transcendental subject, and which is the only

reality accessible to us, yet entirely valid for us. The phenomenal world

is not a contingent and individual phenomenon, but one necessary for all

beings organized as we are, a phenomenon for humanity. My representations

are not the phenomena themselves, but images and signs through which I

cognize phenomena, _i.e._, real things as they are for me and for every man

(not as they are in themselves). The reality of phenomena consists in the

fact that they can be perceived by men, and the objective validity of my

knowledge of them in the fact that every man must agree in it. The laws

which the understanding (not the individual understanding!) imposes upon

nature hold for phenomena, because they hold for every man. Objectivity is

universal validity. If the world of phenomena which is intuited and known

by us wears a different appearance from the world of things in themselves,

this does not justify us in declaring it to be mere seeming and dreaming; a

dream which all dream together, and which all must dream, is not a dream,

but reality. As we must represent the world> so it is, though for us, of

course, and not in itself.

Many places in Kant's works seem to argue against the intermediate position

here ascribed to the world of phenomena--according to which it is less than

things in themselves and more than subjective representation--which, since

they explain the phenomenon as a mere representation, leave room for only

two factors (on the one hand, the thing in itself = that in the thing which

cannot be represented; on the other, the thing for me = my representation

of the thing). In fact, the distinction between the phenomenon "itself"

and the representation which the individual now has of it and now does not

have, is far from being everywhere adhered to with desirable clearness; and

wherever it is impossible to substitute that which has been represented

and that which may be represented or possible intuitions for "mere

representations in me," we must acknowledge that there is a departure

from the standpoint which is assumed in some places with the greatest

distinctness. The latter finds unequivocal expression, among other places,

in the "Analogies of Experience" and the "Deduction of the Pure Concepts

of the Understanding," § 2, No. 4 (first edition). The second of these

passages speaks of one and the same universal experience, in which all

perceptions are represented in thoroughgoing and regular connection, and of

the thoroughgoing affinity of phenomena as the basis of the possibility

of the association of representations. This affinity is ascribed to the

objects of the senses, not to the representations, whose association is

rather the result of the affinity, and not to the things in themselves, in

regard to which the understanding has no legislative power.

The relation between the thing in itself and the phenomenon is also

variable. Now they are regarded as entirely heterogeneous (that which can

never be intuited exists in a mode opposed to that of the intuited and

intuitable), and now as analogous to each other (non-intuitable properties

of the thing in itself correspond to the intuitable characteristics of the

phenomenon). The former is the case when it is said that phenomena are in

space and time, while things in themselves are not; that in the first of

these classes natural causation rules, and in the second freedom; that

in the one-conditioned existence alone is found, in the other

unconditioned.[1] But just as often things in themselves and phenomena are

conceived as similar to one another, as two sides of the same object,[2]

of which one, like the counter-earth of the Pythagoreans, always remains

turned away from us, while the other is turned toward us, but does not

reveal the true being of the object. According to this each particular

thing, state, relation, and event in the world of phenomena would have its

real counterpart in the noumenal sphere: un-extended roses in themselves

would lie back of extended roses, certain non-temporal processes back of

their growth and decay, intelligible relations back of their relations in

space. This is approximately the relation of the two conceptions as in part

taught by Lotze himself, in part represented by him as taught by Kant.

Herbart's principle, "So much seeming, so much indication of being" (_wie

viel Schein so viel Hindeutung aufs Sein_), might also be cited in

this connection. That which continually impelled Kant, in spite of his

proclamation of the unknowableness of things in themselves, to form ideas

about their character, was the moral interest, but this sometimes threw its

influence in favor of their commensurability with phenomena and sometimes

in the opposite scale. For in his ethics Kant needs the intelligible

character or man as noumenon, and must assume as many men in themselves (to

be consistent, then, in general, as many beings in themselves) as there are

in the world of phenomena. But for practical reasons, again, the causality

of the man in himself must be thought of as entirely different from, and

opposed to, the mechanical causality of the sense world. Kant's judgment

is, also, no more stable concerning the value of the knowledge of the

suprasensible, which is denied to us. "I do not _need_ to know what

things in themselves may be, because a thing can never be presented to me

otherwise than as a phenomenon." And yet a natural and ineradicable need of

the reason to obtain some conviction in regard to the other world is said

to underlie the abortive attempts of metaphysics; and Kant himself uses

all his efforts to secure to the practical reason the satisfaction of this

need, though he has denied it to the speculative reason, and to make good

the gap in knowledge by faith. From the theoretical standpoint an extension

of knowledge beyond the limits of phenomena appears impossible, but

unnecessary; from the practical standpoint it is, to a certain extent,

possible and indispensable.

[Footnote 1: Kant's conjectures concerning a common ground of material and

mental phenomena, and those concerning the common root of sensibility and

understanding, show the same tendency. On the one hand, duality, on the

other, unity.]

[Footnote 2: "Phenomenon, which always has _two sides_, the one when the

object in itself is considered (apart from the way in which it is intuited,

and just because of which fact its character always remains problematical),

the other when we regard the form of the intuition of this object, which

must be sought not in the object in itself, but in the subject to whom the

object appears, while it nevertheless actually and necessarily belongs

to the phenomenon of _this object_." "This predicate "--_sc_., spatial

quality, extension--"is attributed to things only in so far as _they_

appear to us."]

There is, then, a threefold distinction to be made: (1) _Things in

themselves_, which can never be the object of our knowledge, because our

forms of intuition are not valid for them. (2) _Phenomena_, things for us,

nature or the totality of that which either is or, at least, may be the

object of our knowledge (here belong the possible inhabitants of the moon,

the magnetic matter which pervades all bodies, and the forces of attraction

and repulsion, though the first have never been observed, and the second is

not perceptible on account of the coarseness of our senses, and the

last, because forces in general are not perceptible; nature comprehends

everything whose existence "is connected with our perceptions in a possible

experience"[1]). (3) _Our representations_ of phenomena, _i.e._, that of

the latter which actually enters into the consciousness of the empirical

individual. In the realm of things in themselves there is no motion

whatever, but at most an intelligible correlate of this relation; in the

world of phenomena, the world of physics, the earth moves around the sun;

in the sphere of representation the sun moves around the earth. It is true,

as has been said, that Kant sometimes ignores the distinction between

phenomena as related to noumena and phenomena as related to

representations; and, as a result of this, that the phenomenon is either

completely volatilized into the representation[2] or split up into an

objective half independent of us and a representative half dependent on us,

of which the former falls into the thing in itself,[3] while the latter is

resolved into subjective states of the ego.

[Footnote 1: "Nothing is actually given to us but the perception and the

empirical progress from this to other possible perceptions." "To call a

phenomenon a real thing antecedent to perception, means ... that in the

_progress of experience_ we must meet with such a perception."]

[Footnote 2: Phenomena "are altogether in me," "exist only in our

sensibility as a modification of it." "There is nothing in space but that

which is actually represented in it." Phenomena are "mere representations,

which, if they are not given in us (in perception) nowhere exist."]

[Footnote 3: Here Kant is guilty of the fault which he himself has

censured, of confusing the physical and transcendental meanings of "in

itself." He forgets that the thing, if it is momentarily not intuited or

represented by me, and therefore is not immediately given for me as an

individual, is nevertheless still present for me as man, is mediately

given, that is, is discoverable by future search. That which is without

my present consciousness is not for this reason without all human

consciousness. In fact, Kant often overlooks the distinction between actual

and possible intuition, so that for him the "objects" of the latter slip

out of space and time and into the thing in itself. To the "transcendental

object we may ascribe the extent and connection of our possible

perceptions, and say that it is given in itself before all experience." In

it "the real things of the past are given."]

After the possibility and the legitimacy of synthetic judgments _a

priori_ have been proved for pure mathematics upon the basis of the

pure intuitions, there emerges, in the second place, the problem of the

possibility of _a priori_ syntheses in pure natural science, or the

question, Do pure concepts exist? And after this has been answered in the

affirmative, the further questions come up, Is the application of these,

first, to phenomena, and second, to things in themselves, possible and

legitimate, and how far?

%(b) The Concepts and Principles of the Pure Understanding (Transcendental

Analytic).%--Sensations, in order to become "intuition" or the perception

of a phenomenon, needed to be ordered in space and time; in order to become

"experience" or a unified knowledge of objects, intuitions need a synthesis

through concepts. In order to objective knowledge the manifold of intuition

(already ordered by its arrangement in space and time) must be connected in

the unity of the concept. Sensibility gives the manifold to be connected,

the understanding the connecting unity. The former is able to intuit only,

the latter only to think; knowledge can arise only as the result of their

union. Intuitions depend on affections, concepts on functions, that is, on

unifying acts of the understanding.

To discover the pure forms of thought it is necessary to isolate the

understanding, just as an isolation of the sensibility was necessary above

in order to the discovery of the pure forms of intuition. We obtain the

elements of the pure knowledge of the understanding by rejecting all that

is intuitive and empirical. These elements must be pure, must be concepts,

further, not derivative or composite, but fundamental concepts, and their

number must be complete. This completeness is guaranteed only when the pure

concepts or _categories_ are sought according to some common principle,

which assigns to each its position in the connection of the whole, and

not (as with Aristotle) collected by occasional, unsystematic inquiries

undertaken at random. The table of the forms of judgment will serve as a

guide for the discovery of the categories. Thought is knowledge through

concepts; the understanding can make no other use of concepts than to judge

by means of them. Hence, since the understanding is the faculty of judging,

the various kinds of connection in judgment must yield the various pure

"connective-concepts" (_Verknüpfungsbegriffe_.--K. Fischer) or categories.

In regard to quantity, every judgment is universal, particular, or

singular; in regard to quality, affirmative, negative, or infinite; in

regard to relation, categorical, hypothetical, or disjunctive; and in

regard to modality, problematical, assertory, or apodictic. To these

twelve forms of judgment correspond as many categories, viz., I., Unity,

Plurality, Totality; II., Reality, Negation, Limitation; III., Subsistence

and Inherence (Substance and Accident), Causality and Dependence (Cause and

Effect), Community (Reciprocity between the Active and the Passive);

IV., Possibility--Impossibility, Existence--Non-existence,

Necessity--Contingency.

The first six of these fundamental concepts, which have no correlatives,

constitute the mathematical, the second six, which appear in pairs,

the dynamical categories. The former relate to objects of (pure or of

empirical) intuition, the latter to the existence of these objects (in

relation to one another or to the understanding). Although all other _a

priori_ division though concepts must be dichotomous, each of the four

heads includes three categories, the third of which in each case arises

from the combination of the second and first,[1] but, nevertheless, is an

original (not a derivative) concept, since this combination requires a

special _actus_ of the understanding. Universality or totality is plurality

regarded as unity, limitation is reality combined with negation, community

is the reciprocal causality of substances, and necessity is the actuality

given by possibility itself. Kant omits, as unnecessary here, the useful,

easy, and not unpleasant task of noting the great number of derivative

concepts _a priori_ (predicables) which spring from the combination of

these twelve original concepts (predicaments = categories) with one

another, or with the modes of pure sensibility,--the concepts force,

action, passion, would belong as subsumptions under causality, presence

and resistance under community, origin, extinction, and change under

modality,--since his object is not a system, but only the principles of

one. His liking or even love for this division according to quantity,

quality, relation, and modality, which he always has ready as though it

were a universal key for philosophical problems, reveals a very strong

architectonic impulse, against which even his ever active skeptical

tendency is not able to keep up the battle.

[Footnote 1: Concerning this "neat observation," Kant remarked that it

might "perhaps have important consequences in regard to the scientific form

of all knowledge of reason." This prophecy was fulfilled, although in a

different sense from that which floated before his mind. Fichte and Hegel

composed their "thought-symphonies" in the three-four time given by Kant.]

In view of the derivation of the forms of thought from the forms of

judgment Kant does not stop to give a detailed proof that the categories

are concepts, and that they are pure. Their discursive (not intuitive)

character is evident from the fact that their reference to the object is

mediate only (and not, as in the case of intuition, immediate), and their

_a priori_ origin, from the necessity which they carry with them, and which

would be impossible if their origin were empirical. Here Kant starts from

Hume's criticism of the idea of cause. The Scottish skeptic had said that

the necessary bond between cause and effect can neither be perceived nor

logically demonstrated; that, therefore, the relation of causality is an

idea which we--with what right?--add to perceived succession in time. This

doubt (without the hasty conclusions), says Kant, must be generalized, must

be extended to the category of substance (which had been already done by

Hume, pp. 226-7, though the author of the Critique of Reason was not aware

of the fact), and to all other pure concepts of the understanding. Then we

may hope to kindle a torch at the spark which Hume struck out. The problem

"It is impossible to see why, because something exists, something else must

necessarily exist," is the starting point alike of Hume's skepticism and

Kant's criticism. The former recognized that the principle of causality

is neither empirical nor analytic, and therefore concluded that it is an

invention of reason, which confuses subjective with objective necessity.

The latter shows that in spite of its subjective origin it has an objective

value; that it is a truth which is independent of all experience, and yet

valid for all who have experience, and for all that can be experienced.

Of the two questions, "How can the concepts which spring from our

understanding possess objective validity?" and, "How (through what means

or media) does their application to objects of experience take place?"

the first is answered in the Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the

Understanding, and the second in the chapter on their Schematism.

The _Deduction_, the most difficult portion of the Critique, shows that the

objective validity of the categories, as concepts of objects in general,

depends on the fact that _through them alone experience_ as far as regards

the form of thought _is possible, _i.e._, it is only through them that any

object whatever can be thought. All knowledge consists in judgments; all

judgments contain a connection of representations; all connection--whether

it be conscious or not, whether it relates to concepts or to pure or

empirical intuitions--is an _act of the understanding_; it cannot be given

by objects, but only spontaneously performed by the subject itself. We

cannot represent anything as connected in the object unless we have

ourselves first connected it. The connection includes three conceptions:

that of the manifold to be connected (which is given by intuition), that

of the act of synthesis, and that of the unity; this last is two-fold,

an objective unity (the conception of an object in general in which the

manifold is united), and a subjective unity (the unity of consciousness

under which or, rather, through which the connection is effected). The

categories represent the different kinds of combination, each one of these,

again, being completed in three stages, which are termed the Synthesis of

Apprehension in Intuition, the Synthesis of Reproduction in Imagination,

and the Synthesis of Recognition in Concepts. If I wish to think the time

from one noon to the next, I must (1) grasp (apprehend) the manifold

representations (portions of time) in succession; (2) retain or renew

(reproduce) in thought those which have preceded in passing to those which

follow; (3) be conscious that that which is now thought is the same

with that thought before, or know again (recognize) the reproduced

representation as the one previously experienced. If the mind did not

exercise such synthetic activity the manifold of representation would not

constitute a whole, would lack the unity which consciousness alone can

impart to it. Without this _one_ consciousness, concepts and knowledge of

objects would be wholly impossible. The unity of pure self-consciousness

or of "transcendental apperception" is the postulate of all use of the

understanding. In the flux of internal phenomena there is no constant

or abiding self, but the unchangeable consciousness here demanded is a

precedent condition of all experience, and gives to phenomena a connection

according to laws which determine an object for intuition, _i.e._, the

conception of something in which they are necessarily connected.[1]

Reference to an object is nothing other than the necessary unity of

consciousness. The connective activity of the understanding, and with

it experience, is possible only through "the synthetic unity of pure

apperception," the "I think," which must be able to accompany all my

representations, and through which they first become _mine_.

[Footnote 1: Object is "that which opposes the random or arbitrary

determination of our cognitions," and which causes "them to be determined

in a certain way _a priori_."]

Experience (in the strict sense) is distinguished from perception

(experience in the wide sense) by its objectivity or universal validity. A

judgment of perception (the sun shines upon the stone and the stone becomes

warm) is only subjectively valid; while, on the other hand, a judgment of

experience (the sun warms the stone) aims to be valid not only for me and

my present condition, but always, for me and for everyone else. If the

former is to become the latter, an _a priori_ concept must be added to

the perception (in the above case, the concept of cause), under which the

perception is subsumed. The category determines the perceptions in view of

the form of the judgment, gives to the judgment its reference to an object,

and thus gives to the percepts, or rather, concepts (sunshine and warmth),

necessary and universally valid connection. The "reason why the judgments

of others" must "agree with mine" is "the unity of the object to which they

all relate, with which they agree, and hence must also all agree with one

another."

Though the categories take their origin in the nature of the subject, they

are objective and valid for objects of experience, because experience is

possible alone through them. They are not the product, but the ground

of experience. The second difficulty concerns their applicability to

phenomena, which are wholly disparate. By what means is the gulf between

the categories, which are concepts and _a priori_, and perceptions, which

are intuitous and empirical, bridged over? The connecting link is supplied

by the imagination, as the faculty which mediates between sensibility and

understanding to provide a concept with its image, and consists in the

intuition of time, which, in common with the categories, has an _a priori_

character, and, in common with perceptions, an intuitive character, so that

it is at once pure and sensuous. The subsumption of phenomena or empirical

intuitions under the category is effected through the _Schemata_[1] of the

concepts of the understanding, _i.e._, through _a priori_ determinations

of time according to rules, which relate to time-_series_, time-_content_,

time-_order_, and time-_comprehension_, and indicate whether I have to

apply this or that category to a given object.

[Footnote 1: The schema is not an empirical image, but stands midway

between this (the particular intuition of a definite triangle or dog) and

the unintuitable concept, as a general intuition (of a triangle or a dog

in general, which holds alike for right- and oblique-angled triangles, for

poodles and pugs), or as a rule for determining our intuition in accordance

with a concept.]

Each category has its own schema. The schema of quantity is number, as

comprehending the successive addition of homogeneous parts. Filled time

(being in time) is the schema of reality, empty time (not-being in time)

the schema of negation, and more or less filled time (the intensity of

sensation, indicating the degree of reality) the schema of limitation.

Permanence in time is the sign for the application of the category of

substance;[1] regular succession, for the application of the concept of

cause; the coexistence of the determinations of one substance with those of

another, the signal for their subsumption under the concept of reciprocity.

The schemata of possibility, actuality, and necessity, finally, are

existence at any time whatever (whensoever), existence at a definite time,

and existence at all times. By such schematic syntheses the pure concept

is brought near to the empirical intuition, and the way is prepared for an

application of the former to the latter, or, what is the same thing, for

the subsumption of the latter under the former.

[Footnote 1: This determination is important for psychology. Since

the inner sense shows nothing constant, but everything in a continual

flux,--for the permanent subject of our thoughts is an identical activity

of the understanding, not an intuitable object,--the concept of substance

is not applicable to psychical phenomena. Representations of a permanent

(material substances) exist, indeed, but not permanent representations. The

abiding self (ego, soul) which we posit back of internal phenomena is, as

the Dialectic will show, a mere Idea, which, or, rather, the object of

which, maybe "thought" as substance, it is true, but cannot be "given" in

intuition, hence cannot be "known."]

As a result of the fact that the schematism permits a presentation of the

categories in time intuition antecedent to all experience, the possibility

is given of synthetic judgments _a priori_ concerning objects of possible

experience. Such judgments, in so far as they are not based on higher

and more general cognitions, are termed "principles," and the system of

them--to be given, with the table of the categories as a guide, in

the _Analytic of Principles_ or the Doctrine of the Faculty of

Judgment--furnishes the outlines of "pure natural science." When thus

the rules of the subsumption to be effected have been found in the pure

concepts, and the conditions and criteria of the subsumption in the

schemata, it remains to indicate the principles which the understanding,

through the aid of the schemata, actually produces _a priori_ from its

concepts.

The principle of quantity is the _Axiom of Intuition_, the principle of

quality the _Anticipation of Perception_; the principles of relation

are termed _Analogies of Experience_, those of modality _Postulates

of Empirical Thought in General_. The first runs, "All intuitions are

extensive quantities"; the second, "In all phenomena sensation, and the

real which corresponds to it in the object, has an intensive quantity,

i.e., a degree." The principle of the "Analogies" is, "All phenomena, as

far as their existence is concerned, are subject _a priori_ to rules,

determining their mutual relation in time" (in the second edition this is

stated as follows: "Experience is possible only through the representation

of a necessary connection of perceptions"). As there are three modes of

time, there result three "Analogies," the principles of permanence, of

succession (production), and of coexistence. These are: (1) "In all changes

of phenomena the substance is permanent, and its quantum is neither

increased nor diminished in nature." (2) "All changes take place according

to the law of connection between cause and effect"; or, "Everything that

happens (begins to be) presupposes something on which it follows according

to a rule." (3) "All substances, in so far as they are coexistent, stand in

complete community, that is, reciprocity, one to another." And, finally,

the three "Postulates": "That which agrees with the formal conditions of

experience (in intuition and in concepts) is possible," "That which is

connected with the material conditions of experience (sensation) is actual"

(perception is the only criterion of actuality). "That which, in its

connection with the actual, is determined by universal conditions of

experience, is (exists as) necessary."

As the categories of substance and causality are specially preferred to the

others by Kant and the Kantians, and are even proclaimed by some as the

only fundamental concepts, so also the principles of relation have an

established reputation for special importance. The leading ideas in the

proofs of the "Analogies of Experience"--for in spite of their underivative

character the principles require, and are capable of, proof--may next be

noted.

The time determinations of phenomena, the knowledge of their duration,

their succession, and their coexistence, form an indispensable part of our

experience, not only of scientific experience, but of everyday experience

as well. How is the objective time-determination of things and events

possible? If the matter in hand is the determination of the particulars of

a fight with a bloody ending, the witnesses are questioned and testify:

We heard and saw how A began the quarrel by insulting B, and the latter

answered the insult with a blow, whereupon A drew his knife and wounded his

opponent. Here the succession of perceptions on the part of the persons

present is accepted as a true reproduction of the succession of the actual

events. But the succession of perceptions is not always the sure indication

of an actual succession: the trees along an avenue are perceived one after

the other, while they are in reality coexistent. We might now propose the

following statement: The representation of the manifold of phenomena is

always successive, I apprehend one part after another. I can decide whether

these parts succeed one another in the object also, or whether they

are coexistent, by the fact that, in the second case, the series of

my perceptions is reversible, while in the first it is not. I can, if I

choose, direct my glance along the avenue in such a way that I shall begin

the second time with the tree at which I left off the first time; if I wish

to assure myself that the parts of a house are coexistent, I cause my eye

to wander from the upper to the lower portions, from the right side to the

left, and then to perform the same motions in the opposite direction. On

the other hand, it is not left to my choice to hear the thunder either

before or after I see the lightning, or to see a passing wagon now here,

now there, but in these cases I am bound in the succession of my sensuous

representations. The possibility of interchange in the series of

perceptions proves an objective coexistence, the impossibility of this,

an objective succession. But this criterion is limited to the immediate

present, and fails us when a time relation between unobserved phenomena is

to be established. If I go at evening into the dining room and see a vessel

of bubbling water, which is to be used in making tea, over a burning spirit

lamp, whence do I derive the knowledge that the water began, and could

begin, to boil only after the alcohol had been lighted, and not before?

Because I have often seen the flame precede the boiling of the water, and

in this the irreversibility of the two perceptions has guaranteed to me the

succession of the events perceived? Then I may only assume that it is very

probable, not that it is certain, that in this case also the order of the

two events has been the same as I have observed several times before. As a

matter of fact, however, we all assert that the water could not have come

into a boiling condition unless the generation of heat had preceded; that

in every case the fire must be there before the boiling of the water can

commence. Whence do we derive this _must_? Simply and alone from the

thought of a causal connection between the two events. Every phenomenon

_must_ follow in time that phenomenon of which it is the effect, and must

precede that of which it is the cause. It is through the relation of

causality, and through this alone, that the objective time relation of

phenomena is determined. If nothing preceded an event on which it must

follow according to a rule,[1] then all succession in perception would be

subjective merely, and nothing whatever would be objectively determined by

it as to what was the antecedent and what the consequent in the phenomenon

itself. We should then have a mere play of representations without

significance for the real succession of events. Only the thought of a rule,

according to which the antecedent state contains the necessary condition of

the consequent state, justifies us in transferring the time order of our

representations to phenomena.[2] Nay, even the distinction between

the phenomenon itself, as the object of our representations, and our

representations of it, is effected only by subjecting the phenomenon to

this rule, which assigns to it its definite position in time after another

phenomenon by which it is caused, and thus forbids the inversion of the

perceptions. We can derive the rule of the understanding which produces the

objective time order of the manifold from experience, only because we have

put it into experience, and have first brought experience into being by

means of the rule. We recapitulate in Kant's own words: The objective

(time) relation of phenomena remains undetermined by mere perception (the

mere succession in my apprehension, if it is not determined by means of a

rule in relation to an antecedent, does not guarantee any succession in

the object). In order that this may be known as determined, the relation

between the two states must be so conceived (through the understanding's

concept of causality) that it is thereby determined with necessity which of

them must be taken as coming first, and which second, and not conversely.

Thus it is only by subjecting the succession of phenomena to the law of

causality that empirical knowledge of them is possible. Without the concept

of cause no objective time determination, and hence, without it, no

experience.

[Footnote 1: "A reality following on an empty time, that is, a beginning of

existence preceded by no state of things, can as little be apprehended as

empty time itself."]

[Footnote 2: "If phenomena were things in themselves no one would be able,

from the succession of the representations of their manifold, to tell how

this is connected in the object."]

That which the relation of cause and effect does for the succession[1] of

phenomena, the relation of reciprocity does for their coexistence, and that

of substance and accident for their duration. Since absolute time is not an

object of perception, the position of phenomena in time cannot be directly

determined, but only through a concept of the understanding. When I

conclude that two objects (the earth and the moon) must be coexistent,

because perceptions of them can follow upon one another in both ways, I

do this on the presupposition that the objects themselves reciprocally

determine their position in time, hence are not isolated, but stand in

causal community or a relation of reciprocal influence. It is only on the

condition of reciprocity between phenomena, through which they form a

whole, that I can represent them as coexistent.

[Footnote 1: Against the objection that cause and effect are frequently,

indeed in most cases, simultaneous (_e.g._ the heated stove and the warmth

of the room), Kant remarks that the question concerns the order of time

merely, and not the lapse of time. The ball lying on a soft cushion is

simultaneous, it is true, with its effect, the depression in the cushion.

"But I, nevertheless, distinguish the two by the time relation of dynamical

connection. For if I place the ball on the cushion, its previously smooth

surface is followed by a depression, but if there is a depression in the

cushion (I know not whence) a leaden ball does not follow from it."]

Coexistence and succession can be represented only in a permanent

substratum; they are merely the modes in which the permanent exists. Since

time (in which all change takes place, but which itself abides and does not

change) in itself cannot be perceived, the substratum of simultaneity and

succession must exist in phenomena themselves: the permanent in relation

to which alone all the time relations of phenomena can be determined, is

substance; that which alters is its determinations, accidents, or special

modes of existing. Alteration, _i.e._, origin and extinction, is true of

states only, which can begin and cease to be, and not of substances, which

change (_sich verändern_), i.e., pass from one mode of existence into

another, but do not alter (_wechseln_), i.e., pass from non-existence into

existence, or the reverse. It is the permanent alone that changes, and

its states alone that begin and cease to be. The origin and extinction of

substances, or the increase and diminution of their quantum, would remove

the sole condition of the empirical unity of time; for the time relations

of the coexistent and the successive can be perceived only in an identical

substratum, in a permanent, which exists always. The law "From nothing

nothing comes, and nothing can return to nothing," is everywhere assumed

and has been frequently advanced, but never yet proved, for, indeed, it is

impossible to prove it dogmatically. Here the only possible proof for it,

the critical proof, is given: the principle of permanence is a necessary

condition of experience. The same argument establishes the principle of

sufficient reason, and the principle of the community of substances,

together with the unity of the world to be inferred from this. The three

Analogies together assert: "All phenomena exist in one nature and must so

exist, because without such a unity _a priori_ no unity of experience,

and therefore no determination of objects in experience, would be

possible."--In connection with the Postulates the same transcendental proof

is given for a series of other laws of nature _a priori_, viz., that in the

course of the changes in the world--for the causal principle holds only for

effects in nature, not for the existence of things as substances--there

can be neither blind chance nor a blind necessity (but only a conditional,

hence an intelligible, necessity); and, further, that in the series of

phenomena, there can be neither leap, nor gap, nor break, and hence no

void--_in mundo non datur casus, non datur fatum, non datur saltus, non

datur hiatus_.

While the dynamical principles have to do with the relation of phenomena,

whether it be to one another (Analogies), or to our faculty of cognition

(Postulates), the mathematical relate to the quantity of intuitions and

sensations, and furnish the basis for the application of mathematics

to natural science.[1] An extensive quantity is one in which the

representation of the parts makes the representation of the whole possible,

and so precedes it. I cannot represent a line without drawing it in

thought, i.e., without producing all parts of it one after the other,

starting from a point. All phenomena are intuited as aggregates or as

collections of previously given parts. That which geometry asserts of

pure intuition (i.e., the infinite divisibility of lines) holds also of

empirical intuition. An intensive quantity is one which is apprehended only

as unity, and in which plurality can be represented only by approximation

to negation = 0. Every sensation, consequently every reality in phenomena,

has a degree, which, however small it may be, is never the smallest, but

can always be still more diminished; and between reality and negation there

exists a continuous connection of possible smaller intermediate sensations,

or an infinite series of ever decreasing degrees. The property of

quantities, according to which no part in them is the smallest possible

part, and no part is simple, is termed their continuity. All phenomena

are continuous quantities, i.e., all their parts are in turn (further

divisible) quantities. Hence it follows, first, that a proof for an empty

space or empty time can never be drawn from experience, and secondly, that

all change is also continuous. "It is remarkable," so Kant ends his proof

of the Anticipation, "that of quantities in general we can know one

_quality_ only _a priori_, namely, their continuity, while with regard to

quality (the real of phenomena) nothing is known to us _a priori_ but their

intensive _quantity_, that is, that they must have a degree. Everything

else is left to experience."

[Footnote 1: In each particular science of nature, science proper (i.e.,

apodictically certain science) is found only to the extent in which

mathematics can be applied therein. For this reason chemistry can never

be anything more than a systematic art or experimental doctrine; and

psychology not even this, but only a natural history of the inner sense or

natural description of the soul. That which Kant's _Metaphysical Elements

of Natural Science_, 1786--in four chapters, Phoronomy, Dynamics,

Mechanics, and Phenomenology--advances as pure physics or the metaphysics

of corporeal nature, is a doctrine of motion. The fundamental determination

of matter (of a somewhat which is to be the object of the external senses)

is motion, for it is only through motion that these senses can be affected,

and the understanding itself reduces all other predicates of matter to

this. The second and most valuable part of the work defines matter as the

movable, that which fills space by its moving force, and recognizes two

original forces, repulsive, expansive superficial force or force of

contact, by which a body resists the entrance of other bodies into its own

space, and attractive, penetrative force or the force which works at a

distance, in virtue of which all particles of matter attract one another.

In order to a determinate filling of space the co-operation of both

fundamental forces is required. In opposition to the mechanical theory of

the atomists, which explains forces from matter and makes them inhere in

it, Kant holds fast to the dynamical view which he had early adopted (cf.

p. 324), according to which forces are the primary factor and matter is

constituted by them.]

The outcome of the Analytic of Principles sounds bold enough. _The

understanding is the lawgiver of nature_: "It does not draw its laws _a

priori_ from nature, but prescribes them to it"; the principles of the pure

understanding are the most universal laws of nature, the empirical laws of

nature only particular determinations of these. All order and regularity

take their origin in the spirit, and are put into objects by this.

Universal and necessary knowledge remained inexplicable so long as it was

assumed that the understanding must conform itself to objects; it is at

once explained if, conversely, we make objects conform themselves to the

understanding. This is a reversal of philosophical opinion which may justly

be compared to the Copernican revolution in astronomy; it is just as

paradoxical as the latter, but just as incontestably true, and just as rich

in results. The sequel will show that this strangely sounding principle,

that things conform themselves to our representations and the laws of

nature are dependent on the understanding, is calculated to make us humble

rather than proud. Our understanding is lawgiver within the limits of its

knowledge, no doubt, but it knows only within the limits of its legislative

authority; nature, to which it dictates laws, is nothing but a totality of

phenomena; beyond the limits of the phenomenal, where its commands become

of no effect, its wishes also find no hearing.

In the second edition the Analytic of Principles contains as a supplement a

"Refutation of Idealism," which, in opposition to Descartes's position that

the only immediate experience is inner experience, from which we reach

outer experience by inference alone, argues that, conversely, it is only

through outer experience, which is immediate experience proper, that inner

experience--as the consciousness of my own existence in time--is possible.

For all time determination presupposes something permanent in perception,

and this permanent something cannot be in me (the mere representation of an

external thing), but only actually existing things which I perceive without

me. There is, further, a chapter on the "Ground of the Distinction of all

Objects in general into Phenomena and Noumena," with an appendix on the

Amphiboly (ambiguity) of the Concepts of Reflection. The latter shows

that the concepts of comparison: identity and difference, agreement and

opposition, the internal and the external, matter and form, acquire

entirely different meanings when they relate to phenomena and to things in

themselves (in other words, to things in their relation to the sensibility,

and in relation to the understanding merely); and further, in a criticism

of the philosophy of Leibnitz, reproaches him with having intellectualized

phenomena, while Locke is said to have sensationalized the concepts of the

understanding.

The chapter on the distinction between phenomena and noumena very much

lessens the hopes, aroused, perchance, by the establishment of the

non-empirical origin of the categories, for an application of these not

confined to any experience. Although the categories, that is, are in their

origin entirely independent of all experience (so much so that they first

make experience possible), they are yet confined in their application

within the bounds of possible experience. They "serve only to spell

phenomena, that we may be able to read them as experience," and when

applied to things in themselves lose all significance.[1] Similarly the

principles which spring from them are "nothing more than principles of

possible experience," and can be referred to phenomena alone, beyond which

they are arbitrary combinations without objective reality. Things in

themselves may be thought, but they can never be known; for knowledge,

besides the empty thought of an object, implies intuitions which must be

subsumed under it or by which the object must be determined. In themselves

the pure concepts relate to all that is thinkable, not merely to that which

can be experienced, but the schemata, which assures their applicability in

the field of experience, at the same time limit them to this sphere. The

schematism makes the immanent use of the categories, and thus a metaphysics

of phenomena, possible, but the transcendent use of them, and consequently

the metaphysics of the suprasensible, impossible. The case would be

different if our intuition were intellectual instead of sensuous, or,

which is the same thing, if our understanding were intuitive instead of

discursive; then the objects which we think would not need to be given us

from another source (through sensuous intuition), but would be themselves

produced in the act by which we thought them. The divine spirit may be such

an archetypal, creative understanding (_intellectus archetypus_), which

generates objects by its thought; the human spirit is not such, and

therefore is confined, with its knowledge, within the circle of possible

perception.--The conception of "intellectual intuition" leads to a

distinction in regard to things in themselves: in its negative meaning

noumenon denotes a thing in so far as it is _not_ the object of our

_sensuous_ intuition, in its positive meaning a thing which is the

object of a _non-sensuous_ intuition. The positive thing in itself is a

problematical concept; its possibility depends on the existence of an

intuitive understanding, something about which we are ignorant. The

negative thing in itself cannot be known, indeed, but it can be thought;

and the representation of it is a possible concept, one which is not

self-contradictory[2] (a principle which is of great importance for

practical philosophy). Still further, it is an indispensable concept, which

shows that the boundary where our intuition ends is not the boundary of

the thinkable as well; and even if it affords no positive extension of

knowledge[3] it is, nevertheless, very useful, since it sets bounds to the

use of the understanding, and thus, as it were, negatively extends our

knowledge. That which lies beyond the boundary, the "how are they possible"

_(Wiemöglichkeit)_ of things in themselves is shrouded in darkness, but the

boundary itself, _i.e._, the "that they are possible" _(Dassmöglichkeit)_,

of things in themselves, and the unknowableness of their nature, belongs to

that which is within the boundary and lies in the light. In this way Kant

believed that the categories of causality and substance might be applied to

the relation of things in themselves to phenomena without offending against

the prohibition of their transcendent use, since here the boundary appeared

only to be touched, and not overstepped.

[Footnote 1: "A pure use of the categories is no doubt possible, that is,

not self-contradictory, but it has no kind of objective validity, because

it refers to no intuition to which it is meant to impart the unity of an

object. The categories remain forever mere functions of thought by which no

object can be given to me, but by which I can only think whatever may

be given to me in intuition" (_Critique of Pure Reason_, Max Müller's

translation, vol. ii. p. 220). Without the condition of sensuous intuition,

for which they supply the synthesis, the categories have no relation to any

definite object; for without this condition they contain nothing but the

logical function, or the form of the concept, by means of which alone

nothing can be known and distinguished as to any object belonging to it

(_Ibid_., pp. 213, 214).]

[Footnote 2: The thing in itself denotes the object in so far as it can

be thought by us, but not intuited, and consequently not determined by

intuitions, _i.e._, cannot be known. It is only through the schematism

that the categories are limited to phenomena. O. Liebmann (_Kant und die

Epigonen_, p. 27, and _passim_) overlooks or ignores this when he says:

Kant here allows himself to "recognize an object emancipated from the

forms of knowledge, therefore an irrational object, _i.e._, to represent

something which is not representable--wooden iron." The thing in itself is

insensible, but not irrational, and the forms of intuition and forms of

thought joined by Liebmann under the title forms of knowledge have in Kant

a by no means equal rank.]

[Footnote 3: A category by itself, freed from all conditions of intuition

(_e.g._, the representation of a substance which is thought without

permanence in time, or of a cause which should not act in time), can yield

no definite concept of an object.]

Though the concepts of the understanding possess a cognitive value in the

sphere of phenomena alone, the hope still remains of gaining an entrance

into the suprasensible sphere through the concepts of reason. It is

indubitable that our spirit is conscious of a far higher need than that for

the mere connection of phenomena into experience; it is that which cannot

be experienced, the Ideas God, freedom, and immortality, which form the

real end of its inquiry. Can this need be satisfied, and how? Can this end

be attained, and reality be given to the Ideas? This is the third question

of the Critique of Reason.

%(c) The Reason's Ideas of the Unconditioned (Transcendental

Dialectic).%--"All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds thence to

the understanding, and ends with reason." The understanding is the

faculty of rules, reason the faculty of principles. The categories of the

understanding are necessary concepts which make experience possible, and

which, therefore, can always be given in experience; the Ideas of reason

are necessary concepts to which no corresponding object can be given. Each

of the Ideas gives expression to an unconditioned. How does the concept of

the unconditioned arise, and what service does it perform for knowledge?

As perceptions are connected by the categories in the unity of the

understanding, and thus are elevated into experience, so the manifold

knowledge of experience needs a higher unity, the unity of reason, in order

to form a connected system. This is supplied to it by the Ideas--which,

consequently, do not relate directly to the objects of intuition, but only

to the understanding and its judgments--in order, through the concept

of the unconditioned, to give completion to the knowledge of the

understanding, which always moves in the sphere of the conditioned, _i.e._,

to give it the greatest possible unity together with the greatest possible

extension. The concept of the absolute grows out of the logical task which

is incumbent on reason, _i.e._, inference, and it may be best explained

from this as a starting point. In the syllogism the judgment asserted in

the conclusion is derived from a general rule, the major premise. The

validity of this general proposition is, however, itself conditional,

dependent on higher conditions. Then, as reason seeks the condition for

each conditioned moment, and always commands a further advance in

the series of conditions, it acts under the Idea of _the totality

of conditions_, which, nevertheless, since it can never be given in

experience, does not denote an object, but only an heuristic maxim for

knowledge, the maxim, namely, never to stop with any one condition as

ultimate, but always to continue the search further. The Idea of the

unconditioned or of the completeness of conditions is a goal which we never

attain, but which we are continually to approach. The categories and the

principles of the understanding were _constitutive_ principles, the Ideas

are _regulative_ merely; their function is to guide the understanding, to

give it a direction helpful for the connection of knowledge, not to inform

it concerning the actual character of things.

Since reason is the faculty of inference (as the understanding was found to

be the faculty of judgment), the forms of the syllogism perform the same

service for us in our search for the Ideas as the forms of judgment in

the discovery of the categories. To the categorical, hypothetical, and

disjunctive syllogisms correspond the three concepts of reason, the soul or

the thinking subject, the world or the totality of phenomena, and God, the

original being or the supreme condition of the possibility of all that can

be thought. By means of these we refer all inner phenomena to the ego as

their (unknown) common subject, think all beings and events in nature as

ordered under the comprehensive system of the (never to be experienced)

universe, and regard all things as the work of a supreme (unknowable)

intelligence. These Ideas are necessary concepts; not accidental products

nor mere fancies, but concepts sprung from the nature of reason; their

use is legitimate so long as we remember that we can have a problematical

concept of objects corresponding to them, but no knowledge of these; that

they are problems and rules for knowledge, never objects and instruments of

it. Nevertheless the temptation to regard these regulative principles as

constitutive and these problems as knowable objects is almost irresistible;

for the ground of the involuntary confusion of the required with the given

absolute lies not so much in the carelessness of the individual as in the

nature of our cognitive faculty. The Ideas carry with them an unavoidable

illusion of objective reality, and the sophistical inferences which spring

from them are not sophistications of men, but of pure reason itself, are

natural misunderstandings from which even the wisest cannot free himself.

At best we can succeed in avoiding the error, not in doing away with the

transcendental illusion from which it proceeds. We can see through the

illusion and avoid the erroneous conclusions built upon it, not shake off

the illusion itself.

On this erroneous objective use of the Ideas three so-called sciences are

based: speculative psychology, speculative cosmology, and speculative

theology, which, together with ontology, constitute the stately structure

of the (Wolffian) metaphysics. The Critique of Reason completes its work

of destruction when, as Dialectic (Logic cf. Illusion), it follows the

refutation of dogmatic ontology--developed in the Analytic--which

believed that it knew things in themselves through the concepts of

the understanding, with a refutation of rational psychology, rational

cosmology, and rational theology. It shows that the first is founded on

paralogisms, and the second entangled in irreconcilable contradictions,

while the third makes vain efforts to prove the existence of the Supreme

Being.

(i) _The Paralogisms of Rational Psychology_. The transcendental

self-consciousness or pure ego which accompanies and connects all my

representations, the subject of all judgments which I form, is, as the

Analytic recognized, the presupposition of all knowing (pp. 358-359), but

as such it can never become an object of knowledge. We must not make

a given object out of the subject which never can be a predicate, nor

substitute a real thinking substance for the logical subject of thought,

nor revamp the unity of self-consciousness into the simplicity and

identical personality of the soul. The rational psychology of the Wolffian

school is guilty of this error, and whatever of proof it advances for the

substantiality, simplicity, and personality of the soul, and, by way

of deduction, for its immateriality and immortality as well as for its

relation to the body, is based upon this substitution, this ambiguity of

the middle term, and therefore upon a _quaternio terminorum_,--all its

conclusions are fallacious. It is allowable and unavoidable to add in

thought an absolute subject, the unity of the ego, to inner phenomena;[1]

it is inadmissible to treat the Idea of the soul as a knowable thing. In

order to be able to apply the category of substance to it, we would have to

lay hold of a permanent in intuition such as cannot be found in the inner

sense. Empirical psychology, then, alone remains for the extension of our

knowledge of mental life, while rational psychology shrivels up from

a doctrine into a mere discipline, which watches that the limits of

experience are not overstepped. But even as a mere limiting determination

it has great value. For, along with the hope of proving the immateriality

and immortality of the soul, the fear of seeing them _disproved_ is also

dissipated; materialism is just as unfounded as spiritualism, and if the

conclusions of the latter concerning the soul as a simple, immaterial

substance which survives the death of the body, cannot be proved, yet we

need not, for that reason, regard them as erroneous, for the opposite is as

little susceptible of demonstration. The whole question belongs not in the

forum of knowledge, but in the forum of faith, and that which we gain by

the proof that nothing can be determined concerning it by theoretical

reasoning (viz., assurance against materialistic objections) is far more

valuable than what we lose.

[Footnote 1: The rational concept of the soul as a simple, independent

intelligence does not signify an actual being, but only expresses certain

principles of systematic unity in the explanation of psychical phenomena,

viz., "To regard all determinations as existing in one subject, all powers,

as far as possible, as derived from, one fundamental power, all change

as belonging to the states of one and the same permanent being, and

to represent all phenomena in space as totally distinct from acts of

thought."]

(2) _The Antinomies of Rational Cosmology_. If in its endeavor to spin

metaphysical knowledge concerning the nature of the spirit and the

existence of the soul after death out of the concept of the thinking ego

the reason falls into the snare of an ambiguous _terminus medius_, the

difficulties which frustrate its attempts to use the Idea of the world

in the extension of its knowledge _a priori_ are of quite a different

character. Here the formal correctness of the method of inference is not

open to attack. It may be proved with absolute strictness (and in the

apagogical or indirect form, from the impossibility of the contrary) that

the world has a beginning in time, and also that it is _limited_ in space;

that every compound substance consists of _simple_ parts; that, besides the

causality according to the laws of nature, there is a causality through

_freedom_, and that an _absolutely necessary Being_ exists, either as a

part of the world or as the cause of it. But the contrary may be proved

with equal stringency (and indirectly, as before): The world is infinite in

space and time; there is nothing simple in the world; there is no freedom,

but everything in the world takes place entirely according to the laws of

nature; and there exists no absolutely necessary Being either within the

world or without it. This is the famous doctrine of the conflict of the

four cosmological theses and antitheses or of the Antinomy of Pure Reason,

the discovery of which indubitably exercised a determining influence upon

the whole course of the Kantian Critique of Reason, and which forms one of

its poles. The transcendental idealism, the distinction between phenomena

and noumena, and the limitation of knowledge to phenomena, all receive

significant confirmation from the Antithetic. Without the critical

idealism (that which is intuited in space and time, and known through

the categories, is merely the phenomenon of things, whose "in itself" is

unknowable), the antinomies would be insoluble. How is reason to act in

view of the conflict? The grounds for the antitheses are just as conclusive

as those for the theses; on neither side is there a preponderance which

could decide the result. Ought reason to agree with both parties or with

neither?

The solution distinguishes the first two antinomies, as the mathematical,

from the second two, as the dynamical antinomies; in the former, since it

is a question of the composition and division of quanta, the conditions may

be homogeneous with the conditioned, in the latter, heterogeneous. In the

former, thesis and antithesis are alike _false_, since both start from

the inadmissible assumption that the universe (the complete series of

phenomena) is given, while in fact it is only required of us (is an Idea).

The world does not exist in itself, but only in the empirical regress of

phenomenal conditions, in which we never can reach infinity and never the

limitation of the world by an empty space or an antecedent empty time, for

infinite space, like empty space (and the same holds in regard to time), is

not perceivable. Consequently the quantity of the world is neither finite

nor infinite. The question of the quantity of the world is unanswerable,

because the concept of a sense-world existing by itself _(before_ the

regress) is self-contradictory. Similarly the problem whether the composite

consists of simple elements is insoluble, because the assumption that

the phenomenon of body is a thing in itself, which, antecedent to all

experience, contains all the parts that can be reached in experience--in

other words, that representations exist outside of the representative

faculty--is absurd. Matter is infinitely divisible, no doubt, yet it does

not consist of infinitely numerous parts, and just as little of a definite

number of simple parts, but the parts exist merely in the representation

of them, in the division (decomposition), and this goes as far as possible

experience extends. The case is different with the dynamical antinomies,

where thesis and antithesis can both be _true_, in so far as the former

is referred to things in themselves and the latter to phenomena. The

contradiction vanishes if we take that which the thesis asserts and the

antithesis denies in different senses. The fact that in the world of

phenomena the causal nexus proceeds without interruption and without end,

so that there is no room in it either for an absolutely necessary Being or

for freedom, does not conflict with this other, that beyond the world of

sense there may exist an omnipotent, omniscient cause of the world, and an

intelligible freedom as the ground of our empirically necessary actions.

"May exist," since for the critical philosopher, who has learned that every

extension of knowledge beyond the limits of experience is impossible, the

question can concern only the conceivability of the world-ground and of

freedom. This possibility is amply sufficient to give a support for faith,

as, on the other hand, it is indispensable in order to satisfy at once the

demands of the understanding and of reason, especially to satisfy their

practical interests. For if it were not possible to resolve the apparent

contradiction, and to show its members capable of reconciliation, it would

be all over either with the possibility of experiential knowledge or with

the basis of ethics and religion. Without unbroken causal connection, no

nature; without freedom, no morality; and without a Deity, no religion.

Of special interest is the solution of the third antinomy, which is

accomplished by means of the valuable (though in the form in which it is

given by Kant, untenable) conception of the _intelligible character_.[1]

Man is a citizen of two worlds. As a being of the senses (phenomenon) he

is subject in his volition and action to the control of natural necessity,

while as a being of reason (thing in itself) he is free. For science his

acts are the inevitable results of precedent phenomena, which, in turn,

are themselves empirically caused; nevertheless moral judgment holds

him responsible for his acts. In the one case, they are referred to his

empirical character, in the other, to his intelligible character. Man

cannot act otherwise than he does act, if he be what he is, but he need not

be as he is; the moral constitution of the intelligible character, which

reflects itself in the empirical character, is his own work, and its

radical transformation (moral regeneration) his duty, the fulfillment of

which is demanded, and, hence, of necessity possible.

[Footnote 1: On the difficulties in the way of this theory and the

possibility of their removal cf. R. Falckenberg, _Ueber den intelligiblen

Character, zur Kritik der Kantischen Freiheitslehre_ (from the _Zeitschrift

für Philosophie_, vol. lxxv.), Halle, 1879.]

(3) _Speculative Theology_. The principle of complete determination,

according to which of all the possible predicates of things, as compared

with their opposites, one must belong to each thing, relates the thing to

be determined to the sum of all possible predicates or the _Idea of an ens

realissimum_, which, since it is the representation of a single being, may

be called the _Ideal_ of pure reason. From this prototype things, as its

imperfect copies, derive the material of their possibility; all their

manifold determinations are simply so many modes of limiting the concept of

the highest reality, which is their common substratum, just as all figures

are possible only as different ways of limiting infinite space. Or better:

the derivative beings are not related to the ideal of the original Being as

limitations to the sum of the highest reality (on which view the Supreme

Being would be conceived as an aggregate consisting of the derivative

beings, whereas these presuppose it, and hence cannot constitute it), but

as consequences to a ground. But reason does not remain content with this

entirely legitimate thought of the dependence of finite things on the ideal

of the Being of all beings, as a relation of concepts to the Idea, but,

dazzled by an irresistible illusion, proceeds to realize, to hypostatize,

and to personify this ideal, and, since she herself is dimly conscious of

the illegitimacy of such a transformation of the mere Idea into a given

object, devises _arguments for the existence of God_. Reason, moreover,

would scarcely be induced to regard a mere creation of its thought as a

real being, if it were not compelled from another direction to seek a

resting place somewhere in the regress of conditions, and to think the

empirical reality of the contingent world as founded upon the rock of

something absolutely necessary. There is no being, however, which appears

more fit for the prerogative of absolute necessity than that one the

concept of which contains the therefore to every wherefore, and is in no

respect defective; in other words, rational theology joins the rational

ideal of the most perfect Being with the fourth cosmological Idea of the

absolutely necessary Being.

The proof of the existence of God may be attempted in three ways: we may

argue the existence of a supreme cause either by starting from a definite

experience (the special constitution and order of the sense-world, that

is, its purposiveness), or from an indefinite experience (any existence

whatever), or, finally, abstracting from all experience, from mere concepts

_a priori_. But neither the empirical nor the transcendent nor the

intermediate line of thought leads to the goal. The most impressive and

popular of the proofs is the _physico-theological_ argument. But even if we

gratuitously admit the analogy of natural products with the works of human

art (for the argument is not able to prove that the purposive arrangement

of the things in the world, which we observe with admiration, is

contingent, and could only have been produced by an ordering, rational

principle, not self-produced by their own nature according to general

mechanical laws), this can yield an inference only to an intelligent author

of the purposive form of the world, and not to an author of its matter,

only, therefore, to a world-architect, not to a world-creator. Further,

since the cause must be proportionate to the effect, this argument can

prove only a very wise and wonderfully powerful, but not an omniscient

and omnipotent, designer, and so cannot give any definite concept of

the supreme cause of the world. In leaping from the contingency of the

purposive order of the world to the existence of something absolutely

necessary and thence to an all-comprehensive reality, the teleological

argument abandons the ground of experience and passes over into the

_cosmological argument_, which in its turn is merely a concealed

ontological argument (these two differ only in the fact that the

cosmological proof argues from the antecedently given absolute necessity

of a being to its unlimited reality, and the ontological, conversely, from

supreme reality to necessary existence). The weaknesses of the cosmological

argument in its first half consist in the fact that, in the inference

from the contingent to a cause for it, it oversteps the boundary of the

sense-world, and, in the inference from the impossibility of an infinite

series of conditions to a first cause, it employs the subjective principle

of investigation--to assume hypothetically a necessary ultimate ground in

behalf of the systematic unity of knowledge--as an objective principle

applying to things in themselves. The _ontological argument_, finally,

which the two nominally empirical arguments hoped to avoid, but in which in

the end they were forced to take refuge, goes to wreck on the impossibility

of dragging out of an idea the existence of the object corresponding to it.

Existence denotes nothing further than the position of the subject with all

the marks which are thought in its concept--that is, its relation to our

knowledge, but does not itself belong to the predicates of the concept, and

hence cannot be analytically derived from the latter. The content of the

concept is not enriched by the addition of being; a hundred real dollars do

not contain a penny more than a hundred conceived dollars. All existential

propositions are synthetic; hence the existence of God cannot be

demonstrated from the concept of God. It is a contradiction, to be sure, to

say that God is not almighty, just as it is a contradiction to deny that

a triangle has three angles: _if_ posit the concept I must not remove

the predicate which necessarily belongs to it. If I remove the subject,

however, together with its predicate (the almighty God is not), no

contradiction arises, for in that case nothing remains to be contradicted.

Thus all the proofs for the existence of a necessary being are shown to be

illusory, and the basis of speculative theology uncertain. Nevertheless the

idea of God retains its validity, and the perception of the inability of

reason to demonstrate its objective reality on theoretical grounds has

great value. For though the existence of God cannot be proved, it is true,

by way of recompense, that it cannot be disproved; the same grounds which

show us that the assertion of his existence is based on a weak foundation

suffice also to prove every contrary assertion unfounded. And should

practical motives present themselves to turn the scale in favor of the

assumption of a supreme and all-sufficient Being, reason would be obliged

to take sides and to follow these grounds, which, it is true, are not

objectively sufficient,[1] but still preponderant, and than which we know

none better. After, however, the objective reality of the idea of God is

guaranteed from the standpoint of ethics, there remains for transcendental

theology the important negative duty ("censorship," _Censor_) of exactly

determining the concept of the most perfect Being (as a being which through

understanding and freedom contains the first ground of all other things),

of removing from it all impure elements, and of putting an end to all

opposite assertions, whether atheistic, deistic (deism maintains the

possibility of knowing the existence of an original being, but declares all

further determination of this being impossible), or (in the dogmatic

sense) anthropomorphic. Theism is entirely possible apart from a mistaken

anthropomorphism, in so far as through the predicates which we take from

inner experience (understanding and will) we do not determine the concept

of God as he is in himself, but only _analogically_[2] in his relation to

the world. That concept serves only to aid us in our contemplation of

the world,[3] not as a means of knowing the Supreme Being himself. For

speculative purposes it remains a mere ideal, yet a perfectly faultless

one, which completes and crowns the whole of human knowledge.

[Footnote 1: "They need favor to supply their lack of legitimate claims."

Of themselves alone, therefore, they are unable to yield any theological

knowledge, but they are fitted to prepare the understanding for it, and to

give emphasis to other possible (moral) proofs.]

[Footnote 2: We halt _at_ the boundary of the legitimate use of reason,

without overstepping it, when we limit our judgment to the relation of

the world to the Supreme Being, and in this allow ourselves a symbolical

anthropomorphism only, which in reality has reference to our language alone

and not to the object.]

[Footnote 3: We are compelled to _look on_ the world _as if_ it were the

work of a supreme intelligence and will. "We may confidently derive the

phenomena of the world and their existence from other (phenomena), as if no

necessary being existed, and yet unceasingly strive after completeness

in the derivation, as though such a being were presupposed as a supreme

ground." In short, physical (mechanical) _explanation_, and a theistic

point of view or teleological _judgment_.]

Thus the value of the Ideas is twofold. By showing the untenable ness of

atheism, fatalism, and naturalism, they I clear the way for the objects of

faith. By providing natural science with the standpoint of a systematical

unity through teleological connection, they make an extension of the use of

the understanding possible within the realm of experience,[1] though not

beyond it. The systematic development of the Kantian teleology, which is

here indicated in general outlines only, is found in the second part of the

_Critique of Judgment_; while the practical philosophy, which furnishes the

only possible proof, the moral proof, for the reality of the Ideas, erects

on the site left free by the removal of the airy summer-houses of dogmatic

metaphysics the solid mansion of critical metaphysics, that is, the

metaphysics of duties and of hopes. "I was obliged to destroy knowledge

in order to make room for faith." The transition from the impossible

theoretical or speculative knowledge of things in themselves to the

possible "practical knowledge" of them (the belief that there is a God and

a future world) is given in the _Doctrine of Method_, which is divided into

four parts (the Discipline, the Canon, the Architectonic, and the History

of Pure Reason), in its second chapter. There, in the ideal of the _Summum

Bonum_, the proof is brought forward for the validity of the Ideas God,

freedom, and immortality, as postulates inseparable from moral obligation;

and by a cautious investigation of the three stages of assent (opinion,

knowledge, and belief) both doctrinal and moral belief are assigned their

places in the system of the kinds of knowledge.

[Footnote 1: The principle to regard all order in the world (_e.g._, the

shape of the earth, mountains, and seas, the members of animal bodies) as

if it proceeded from the design of a supreme reason leads the investigator

on to various discoveries.]

We may now sum up the results of the three parts of Kant's theoretical

philosophy. The pure intuitions, the categories, and the Ideas are

functions of the spirit, and afford non-empirical _(erfahrungsfreie)_

knowledge concerning the objects of possible experience (and concerning the

possibility of knowledge). The first make universal and necessary knowledge

possible in relation to the forms under which objects can be given to us;

the second make a similarly apodictic knowledge possible in relation to

the forms under which phenomena must be thought; the third make possible a

judgment of phenomena differing from this knowledge, yet not in conflict

with it. The categories and the Ideas, moreover, yield problematical

concepts of objects which are not given to us in intuition, but which may

exist outside of space and time: things in themselves cannot be known, it

is true, but they can be thought, a fact of importance in case we should be

assured of their existence in some other way than by sensuous intuition.

The determination of the limits of speculative reason is finished.

All knowing and all demonstration is limited to phenomena or possible

experience. But the boundary of that which can be experienced is not the

boundary of that which is, still less of that which ought to be; the

boundary of theoretical reason is not the boundary of practical reason. We

_ought_ to act morally; in order to be able to do this we must ascribe to

ourselves the power to initiate a series of events; and, in general, we are

warranted in assuming everything the non-assumption of which makes moral

action impossible. If we were merely theoretical, merely experiential

beings, we should lack all occasion to suppose a second, intelligible world

behind and above the world of phenomena; but we are volitional and active

beings under laws of reason, and though we are unable to know things in

themselves, yet we may and must _postulate_ them--our freedom, God, and

immortality. For not only that which is a condition of experience is true

and necessary, but that, also, which is a condition of morality. The

discovery of the laws and conditions of morality is the mission of

practical philosophy.

%2. Theory of Ethics.%