EIGHTH EPOCH.

RECURRENCE TO THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION RESPECTING THE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE.

CHAPTER I.

KANT.

§ I. LIFE OF KANT.

IMMANUEL KANT was born at Königsberg, in Prussia, 22d April, 1724. His family was originally Scotch, a circumstance which, when taken in conjunction with his philosophical connection with Hume, has some little interest. His father was a saddler, a man of tried integrity. His mother was somewhat severe, but upright, speaking the truth, and exacting it. Kant was early bred in a love of truth, and had before him such examples of moral worth as must materially have contributed to form his own inflexible principles.

Madame de Staël has remarked, that there is scarcely another example, except in Grecian history, of a life so rigorously philosophical as that of Kant. He lived to a great age, and never once quitted the snows of murky Königsberg. There he passed a calm and happy existence, meditating, professing, and writing. He had mastered all the sciences; he had studied languages, and cultivated literature. He lived and died a type of the German Professor: he rose, smoked, drank his coffee, wrote, lectured, took his daily walk always at precisely the same hour. The cathedral clock, it was said, was not more punctual in its movements than Immanuel Kant.*

* He mentions having once been kept two or three days from his promenade by reading Rousseau's Emile, which had just appeared.

He was early sent to the University. There he began and there he ended his career. Mathematics and physics principally occupied his attention at first; and the success with which he pursued these studies soon manifested itself in various publications. He predicted the existence of the planet Uranus; and Herschel himself, after discovering it, admitted Kant's having first announced it.

But none of these publications attracted much attention till the renown of his Critique of Pure Reason had made every thing produced by him a matter of interest. Nor did the Critique itself attract notice at first. The novelty of its views, the repulsiveness of its terminology and style, for some time obscured its real value. This value was at length discovered and made known. All Germany rang with praises of the new philosophy. Almost every "chair" was filled by a Kantist. Numberless books, and not a few pamphlets, came rapidly from the press, either attacking or defending the principles of the Critical Philosophy. Kant had likened himself to Copernicus. The disciples likened him both to Copernicus and Newton; for he had not only changed the whole science of Metaphysics, as Copernicus had changed the science of Astronomy, but had also consummated the science he originated.

The Critique was, he tells us, the product of twelve years' meditation. It was written in less than five months. These two facts sufficiently explain the defects of its composition. In his long meditations he had elaborated his system, divided and subdivided it, and completed its heavy and useless terminology. In the rapidity of composition he had no time for the graces of style, nor for that all-important clearness of structure which (depending as it does upon the due gradation of the parts, and upon the clearness with which the parts themselves are conceived) may be regarded as the great desideratum of a philosophical style.

But in spite of these defects-defects which would have been pardoned by no public but a German public-the Critique be

came celebrated, and its author had to endure the penalty of celebrity. He was pestered with numerous calls of curious strangers, who would not leave Königsberg without having seen him. To the curious were added the admiring. Enthusiastic scholars undertook long journeys to see their great master. Professor Reuss one day walked into his study, saying brusquely that "he had travelled a hundred and sixty miles to see and speak with Kant." The visits became so numerous, that in the latter part of his life he contented himself with merely showing himself at the door of his study for a few minutes.

Kant never spoke of his own system, and from his house the subject was entirely banished. He scarcely read any of the attacks on his works: he had enough of Philosophy in his study and lecture-room, and was glad to escape from it to the topics of the day.

He died on the 12th of February, 1804, in the eightieth year of his age, retaining his powers almost to the last. He latterly, during his illness, talked much of his approaching end. "I do not fear death," he said, "for I know how to die. I assure you that if I knew this night was to be my last, I would raise my hands and say, 'God be praised!' The case would be far different if I had ever caused the misery of any of his creatures."

For a picture of Kant's daily habits, and many interesting traits of his character, the reader will do well to look at De Quincey's "Last Days of Immanuel Kant," in the third volume of his Miscellanies. I cannot find space for such details; nor for more than a passing mention of Kant's relation to Swedenborg, of which such unjustifiable use is often made by the admirers of the latter, who proclaim, with emphasis, that Kant testified to the truth of Swedenborg's clairvoyance. He did nothing of the kind. In his Letter on Swedenborg* he narrates two of the reported cases of Swedenborg's clairvoyance, and says

* Kleine Anthropologische Schriften (Theil vii. p. 5, of Rosenkrantz and Schubert's ed.).

he knows not how to disprove them, they being supported by such respectable testimony; but he nowhere testifies to them. himself; and in the Anthropologie, §§ 35 and 37,* his energetic contempt for Swedenborgianism and all other Schwärmerei is unequivocally expressed.

§ II. KANT'S HISTORICAL POSITION.

There is a notion, somewhat widely spread through England, that Kant was a "dreamer." He is regarded as a sort of Mystic; and the epithet "transcendental" is made to express the superb contempt which common sense feels for the vagaries of philosophers. The "dreams of the Kantian philosophy," and "transcendental nonsense," are phrases which, once popular, now less so, are still occasionally to be met with in quarters where one little expects to find them.

We are bound to say that, whatever the errors of Kantism, "dreaminess" or "mysticism" are the last qualities to be predi cated of it. If its terminology render it somewhat obscure and repulsive, no sooner is the language comprehended, than all obscurity falls away, and a system of philosophy is revealed, which for rigor, clearness, and, above all, intelligibility, surpasses by many degrees systems hitherto considered easy enough of comprehension.

Convinced that the system of Kant is plainly intelligible, and finding that neither Kant himself, nor the generality of his expositors, have succeeded in overcoming the repulsiveness of neologisms and a cumbrous terminology, our task must obviously

* Kleine Anthropologische Schriften, zweite Abtheil. p. 89 sq.

+ Since this was written, we have read the work of Victor Cousin, Leçons sur Kant, vol. i. Paris, 1842. (Translated into English by Mr. Henderson, London, 1854.) It is not only one of the best expositions we have seen; it is also the most intelligible. The chapter on Kant in M. Barchou de Penhoen's useful work, Histoire de la Philos. Allemande depuis Leibnitz jusqu'à Hegel, 2 vols. Paris, 1836, may also be read with advantage; though incomplete, it is intelligible. Also Morell's History of Speculative Philos. in the Nineteenth Century. Readers of German will do well to read Chalybäus's Historische Entwickelung der Speculativen Philos. von Kant bis Hegel (Dres

be to give an exposition of the system, as far as possible, in ordinary philosophical language; and, by exhibiting the historical position which it occupies, connect with it speculations already familiar to the reader.

From Spinoza to Kant the great question had been this:Have we, or have we not, any Ideas which can be called necessarily, absolutely true? A question which resolved itself into this: Have we, or have we not, any Ideas independent of Experience?

The answer given by the majority of thinkers was, that we had no ideas independent of Experience; and Hume had shown that Experience itself was utterly incompetent to assure us of any truth not simply relative.

Experience irresistibly led to Skepticism. The dilemma, therefore, which we signalized in the First Crisis of modern Philosophy, again presented itself: Spinozism or Skepticism? The labors of so many thinkers had only brought the question round to its starting-point. But Spinozism was alarming-Skepticism scarcely less so. Before submitting to be gored by either horn of the dilemma, men looked about to see if there was no escape possible. A temporary refuge was found by the Scotch School in Common Sense, and by Kant in Criticism.

Kant called his system the Critical Philosophy. His object was to examine into the nature of this Experience which led to Skepticism. While men were agreed that Experience was the source of all knowledge, Kant asked himself, What is this Experience?-What are its Elements !

The problem he set himself to solve was but a new aspect of

den, 1848). (It has been twice translated into English: by Mr. Tulk and by Mr. Edersheim.) Michelet's Geschichte der letzten Systeme der Philos. in Deutschland von Kant bis Hegel (Berlin, 1837), is a learned and valuable work, but can be read only by the initiated. More generally useful than any of these is the Hist. de la Philos. Allemande depuis Kant jusqu'à Hegel, by J. Wilm, Paris, 1856. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason has been translated by Mr. Meiklejohn (Bohn's Philosophical Library, 1855) with so much accuracy and ability that the translation may be read with entire confidence; which can rarely be said of translations from the German.