\ ^ 
 
5 79^' 
 
 E/9 
 
 fyxnM UtttMWttg Jitoig 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 FROM THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 Sienrg W. Sage 
 
 1891 
 
 /\,3'mfi : !>>jii^/mi.. 
 
AR17 1950 i ' 
 
 ^^AR 
 
 jUls4-6-l95M-:^ 
 
 2 4 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 B2794.D4 E19 
 
 Kant's inaugural dissertation of 1770 / 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 022 329 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924029022329 
 
CONTRIBUTIONS 
 
 TO 
 
 PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION 
 
 Vol. 1 
 
 No. 2 
 
 KMSlNiDGCRALDKERTATIiOF™ 
 
 TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND DISCUSSION 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM J.' EOKO¥F, Ph.D. 
 
 Profeggor of Philosophy (ind Pedagogy in the UniwrUty of Colorado 
 
 COLUMBIA COLLEGE 
 
 New York 
 
 May, 1894 
 
 Price 90 Cents 
 
Columbia College Contributions 
 
 TO 
 
 PUlosophy, Psychology and Education 
 
 The Department of Philosophy and Education of Columbia College announces 
 the first of a series of Contributions on philosophical, psychological and educa- 
 tional subjects that are to appear under the editorship of the members of the De- 
 partment. These Contributions are not intended to interfere in any Wi^y.with ex- 
 isting journals, to which the members of the Department will continue to lend 
 their cordial support as heretofore; but the new series will contain: 
 
 (i) The longer and more important dissertations submitted by advanced stu- 
 dents in philosophy and education, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for 
 the degree of Doctor of J hilosophy. 
 
 (2) Occasional loiiger and more technical studies by the professors and ia 
 structors themselves. 
 
 (3) Reprints from other journals of contributions made to them by members of 
 the Department of Philosophy and Education at Columbia. 
 
 The Contributions will appear at irregular intervals, and will be numbered con- 
 secutively for binding and preservation in volumes of about 500 pages each. The 
 price of each number will be fixed at the time of its appearance. The 
 editors propose to conform |n every respect to the directions regarding such pub- 
 lications recently formulated by the Trustees of the Columbia University Press. 
 The new Contributions will appear under the editorial direction of Professors 
 Butler and Cattell and Doctors Hyslop and Farrand. 
 
 Libraries and specialists desiring to ree^iv&the Contributions regularly as issued, 
 are requested to communicate with the Department without delay. 
 
 The following umbers of the Contributions are now ready: 
 
 1. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi : a Study in the Origin of German 
 Realism, by Norman Wilde, Ph. D: Q/i^y, 1S94. Price 60 cents). 
 
 2. Kant's Inaugural Dissertation of 1770, including a translation of the 
 Dissertation, together with an Introduction and Discussion, by W. J. Eckoff, Ph. D., 
 Professor of Philosophy and Pedagogy In the University of Colorado. (May, 1894. 
 Price 90 cents.) 
 
 3. The Ethical System of J^mes Martineau, by Joseph H. Hertz, 
 Ph. D., (June, 1894. Price 90 cents.) 
 
 Orders for these numbers, or requests for information concerning them, should 
 be addressed to the 
 
 DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY AND EDUCATION, 
 
 Columbia College, New York. 
 
2 
 
 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 
 
CONTRIBUTIONS 
 
 TO 
 
 PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION 
 
 Vol. 1 
 
 No. 2 
 
 KANTS INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1710 
 
 TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH 
 
 WITH AN INTKODUCTION AND DISCUSSION 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM J. ECKOFF, Pli.D. 
 
 Professor of Philosophy and Pedagogy in the Unvoersity of Colorado 
 
 COLUMBIA COLLEGE 
 
 New York 
 
 Mat, 1894 
 
 Price 90 Cents 
 

CONTBNTS 
 
 Part I. INTRODUCTION 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. Summary of Kant's Critical Development . . 13 
 
 2. Kant and Locke ....... 19 
 
 3. Kant and Berkeley ...... 23 
 
 4. Kant, Hume and Common Sense . . . .23 
 
 5. The Vital Change ...... 27 
 
 6. Leibnitz versus Experience . . . . .28 
 
 7. The Nouveaux Essais and the Dissertation . . 34 
 
 8. Re-Survey in Conclusion . . . . -37 
 
 Part II. TRANSLATION 
 
 Dissertation on the Form and Principles of the Sensi- 
 ble and Intelligible World . . . . .43 
 
 Part III. DISCUSSION: DEVELOPMENTS FROM 
 THE DISSERTATION 
 
 I. Comments of Lambert and Mendelssohn . . 86 
 
 (V) 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 2. The Relation of the Dissertation to the Transcen- 
 
 dental Dialectic 88 
 
 3. The Relation of the Dissertation to the Transcen- 
 
 dental Esthetic and Analytic, illustrated from 
 the Amphiboly of Reflective Concepts . . 93 
 
 4. A Question and An Answer . . . . -97 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In the limits of this paper are set forth : ( i ) a considera- 
 tion of the antecedents of the Dissertation of 1 770 in contem- 
 poraneous philosophy, and in Kant's own previous work; 
 (2) an English version of the Dissertation; and (3) a com- 
 parison of positions occurring in the Dissertation with the 
 same as they occur in the Critiques. 
 
 No careful observer can doubt that not in Germany only, 
 but in the philosophical university work .of the two English- 
 speaking nations also, the cry of " Back to Kant !" is assum- 
 ing larger proportions. It is the expression of an intelligent 
 perception of the metaphysics demanded by the existing 
 condition and the mutual delimitations of science, of ethics, 
 and of religion, not to speak of the bearing of all these on 
 the grave social facts with which the approaching century is 
 called to deal. 
 
 Philosophically, we must get back to firm anchorages. 
 The sociological application of ethics required by the grad- 
 ual uprising of the fourth estate calls for a complete re-ad- 
 justment of ancient land-marks. 
 
 Finally, none but the intellectually blind can fail to see 
 the coming of a profound resurgence of religious force. 
 From the dreameries of Aryan Buddhism and its Mahatmas 
 to the practical politics of modern Catholicism and the 
 attendant counter-organization of Protestant fervor, from the 
 tambourines of the Salvation Army to the quiet array of 
 Christian Endeavor and of the King's Daughters, even to 
 
 (vii) 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 the dim realms of spiritism and table-rapping, all is religious 
 ferment. 
 
 That modern ethics is deeply influenced by the so-called 
 conflict between religion and science little argument is 
 needed to establish. Beginning from few and lofty in- 
 tellects, new lights are carried down to the lower ranges of 
 humanity, dimmed, obscured, but only the more disquieting. 
 In spite of science and the old-line ethics, using sometimes 
 as speaking-tubes the ancient creeds, often thrusting them 
 fiercely aside, there is rising again from the deep of human 
 hearts, the cry to the unspeakable depth of the Absolute 
 Fatherhood. 
 
 And not less than the speculative, moral, and religious 
 are the practical involutions. The masses are ripening for 
 a social, as toward the end of the eighteenth century they 
 were rising for a political, revolution. It is the part of a fool 
 to deprecate a coming revolution. It is the part of the wise 
 to guide it. After hearing all the metaphysical explanations 
 for the Terreur of the French revolution in comparison with 
 Anglo-Saxon overturns, it occurs to one that it is easily 
 explicable. The latter were not in charge of madmen. 
 Locke was the guiding, steadying, controlling spirit over the 
 spirits of the men that controlled the American Revolution, 
 little as the influence of his writings — the circulation of which 
 in the Colonies was comparatively immense — is suspected 
 by one school of writers on American history. 
 
 Ideas make facts ; Platonic as the expression may sound 
 in some ears, it is true, at all events, of historical facts. Is 
 not the whole program of the nature-hatred and ecstatic 
 monkery of medieval history in a line of Augustine — "Noli 
 foras ire; in te ipsum redi ; in interiore homine habitat 
 Veritas f" — Is not the French Revolution the carrying-out of 
 the Montesquieu program first, of the Rousseau program 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 later on? At present we need not fear the people, but 
 we do need to fear the sophist. This is the renaissance of 
 the sophists. As in the time of Socrates, the old hold of 
 professed reUgions is being loosed, narrow patriotism is dis- 
 solving into individualism and cosmopolitanism, and a 
 physiological psychology is rampant on ground once re- 
 served to ethics. A sharp and logical questioning of the 
 sophists is imperative. 
 
 To-day an individual Socrates is impossible. The disease 
 is world-wide. But the scientist if content modestly to 
 claim all that he can hold, the moralist sincere in his appeal 
 not to what man would but to what he should, the religionist 
 not clamorously affirming a chemical proof for God, Freedom, 
 and Immortality, but deep and strong enough to take it in 
 the imperative of the moral law and to see it foreshadowed 
 in the teleology of nature, — each and every one will find his 
 impregnable Magna Charta in the Critiques of Kant. 
 
 And if we must have a revolutionary program, what safer, 
 since of the nature of the Social Contract it must be — what 
 especially safer for us, whose independence as a nation is a 
 vindication of Locke, the Rousseauist before Rousseau — 
 than the subHmated Rousseauism of Kant? A nation sub- 
 stantially free does not reform by fire-brand. Truly as 
 beautifully says Bluntschli : " Rousseau carried the wildly- 
 flaming torch through street and market-place ; Kant in a 
 thousand studies lighted the quiet lamps and candles."' 
 
 We shall, by going back to Kant, lose nothing that is 
 worth keeping of Hegel, of Schelling, of Fichte, or of Kant 
 himself, and we shall get a good deal more than we have 
 ever yet done out of the much-neglected Herbart, on whom 
 we depend after all for the evolution of a philosophy of 
 pedagogy. 
 
 But whether we gain or lose by going back to Kant, there 
 
 ' Geschichte der neueren Statswissenschaft, S. 373. 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 is for the present nothing else to do. You cannot get either 
 scientist, or religionist, or theoretical statesmanship, to make 
 much of Fichte or Schelling. We shall be lucky if we stop 
 at Herbart, and are not driven back on a section of Leibnitz. 
 Of Hegel, the world of thought appears to have had for the 
 present about as much as it will stand. The cause assigned 
 by Heine for the pallor of the arch-enemy is about to cease. 
 
 Zwar ist er bleich, doch ist's kein Wunder; 
 Sanskrit und Hegel studirt er jetzunder. 
 
 It is the conviction of the writer that understanding Kant 
 can be achieved best, not by the utilization of any of the 
 commentaries whose number makes one deplore that editor 
 Omar of the Alexandrian Library is a myth, but by calling 
 on Kant to explain himself. As a part of the plan for col- 
 lecting the elicited responses, a series of monographs was 
 prepared covering the field of the pre-critical work of Kant 
 in Kant's own language, with no more additions from the 
 writer than would suffice for connective tissue. These 
 monographs, accumulated during studentship in Columbia 
 College, were roughly run together into a text of about three 
 hundred pages. 
 
 It is accordingly proposed either to issue the work in the 
 original monographs or as a connected introductory text. 
 The present paper is best judged as a part of this larger 
 plan, disjoined and prepared for separate publication. 
 Kant's language is adhered to only as far as smoothness of 
 presentation permits. References by volume and page to 
 Hartenstein's eight-volume edition (1868) will enable the 
 reader to determine the amount of deviation in each case, 
 as well as to discriminate additions by the writer, which in 
 this isolated paper have necessarily been expanded in order 
 measurably to estabhsh his conception of the subject. 
 Italics are always Kant's own. As far as possible Max 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 Miiller's terminology has been adopted, as being familiar to 
 the English reader. 
 
 The writer is not without hope that even in this detached 
 form the paper may be of some trifling service in elucida- 
 ting the Critique, either autodidactically or in preparation 
 for classes. 
 
THE DISSERTATION 
 
 De Mundi Sensibilis atque Intelligibilis Forma et Principiis 
 
 THE TURNING POINT IN KANf'S PHILOSOPHY 
 
 PART I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 /. Summary of Kanfs Critical Development 
 
 LiCHTENBERG classified man as an Ursachenthier, a cause- 
 seeking animal. This appetite for causes was analyzed by 
 Hume into a habit of association. Disregarding the Associ- 
 ationists and the Scottish school of philosophy, Hume's 
 lasting influence on the history of philosophy arose from 
 his becoming the metaphysical conscience of Kant. The 
 whole development dates back to Locke. Locke's philos- 
 ophy, to quote Kant, was a noogony or, as he elsewhere puts 
 it, a physiology of the understanding. 
 
 In a less Baconian direction, continental Cartesianism 
 emulated mathematics in the effort to arrive at apodictic 
 certainty through deductive dogmatism. Leibnitz, formu- 
 lated by Wolff, became dominant in Germany. Kant's pre- 
 critical metaphysics is, therefore, substantially Leibnitzian. 
 91] 13 
 
14 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 [92 
 
 Newton caused a methodical change in the youthful meta- 
 physics of Kant. From propounding the Theory of the 
 Heavens, that was wrought out by Laplace, Kant went on 
 into geographical and geological studies, anticipating often 
 modern views. From the dwelling-place of man his re- 
 flection was led to anthropology. Then came the era of the 
 Rights of Man. We have Kant's verdict: "Rousseau has 
 set me right." 
 
 Uniting these influences with a Christian education 
 " than which none better was imaginable," set Kant the 
 scientist, deeming causality " a mental law which under no 
 circumstances is it permitted to desert, and from which no 
 phenomenon must be excepted," at variance with Kant the 
 moralist, destined to preach to the world the Categorical 
 Imperative of duty, with its implications of freedom and per- 
 sonal responsibility. If phenomena are things in them- 
 selves, freedom cannot be saved.' But, for moral actions, 
 freedom must be saved. Hence the necessity for Kant of 
 both a Sensible and an Intelligible world. 
 
 Without freedom is impossible the entire practical 
 philosophy of Kant. He terms practical whatever is pos- 
 sible through freedom." He needs, therefore, an intelligible, 
 i. e. moral, world.* 
 
 But all our knowledge begins with the senses.* In fact, all 
 cognition of which man is capable is sensuous. Our knowl- 
 edge of objects of sense through connected perceptions is 
 experience.* Therefore, in point of time, knowledge does 
 not precede experience.' Our theoretical knowledge, in- 
 cluding under sense the inner and the external senses, never 
 transcends the field of experience.' There is but one ex- 
 perience, just as there is only one space and only one time.* 
 
 '111,373. '111,529- 'HI, 534. 
 
 * HI, 247. »Vm,535. 'Ill, 33. 
 
 'VIII, 535. 'Ill, 574. 
 
93] KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF JTjo 15 
 
 Only in experience is truth;' hence the need of a sensible, 
 uninterfered with by the intelligible world. 
 
 If we are to have no such interference, all phenomena 
 must exist in one nature. Without such unity a priori, no 
 unity of experience, and therefore no determination of 
 objects in experience, would be possible.'^ Nature, in the 
 empirical sense of the word, means the coherence of 
 phenomena in their existence, according to necessary laws.' 
 Experience, and thefefore the objects of experience, would 
 be impossible without causal connection.* The determining 
 an occurrence in time, that is, the occurrence itself as per- 
 taining to experience, would be impossible did it not fall 
 under such a dynamic rule. By determining by means of 
 the law of causality an object corresponding to a concept, a 
 represented occurrence has objective validity, or, in a word, 
 truth." But in time nothing can determine anything else, 
 except it be the cause of the latter's determinations." 
 
 But will not Hume's habitual association do as a definition 
 of cause? — Kant thinks not. The semblance of a conviction, 
 based on subjective association and mistaken for the percep- 
 tion of a natural affinity, cannot balance the misgivings justly 
 roused by such bold proceedings. The proofs, like streams 
 that have broken their banks, run wildly across the fields 
 wherever the inclination of some hidden association may 
 chance to lead them. We must show the possibility of ar- 
 riving synthetically and a priori at a certain knowledge of 
 things not contained in the concept of the thing.' 
 
 The usual assumption is that our knowledge must conform 
 to the object. On this supposition, any attempt to settle 
 anything concerning an object by a priori concepts intended 
 to enlarge our experience suffers shipwreck. Let us try 
 
 iiv, 122. 2111,191. »lll, 191. ♦111,518. 
 
 5111,521. "111,189. '111,518. 
 
1 6 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 [94 
 
 whether we shall succeed better on the hypothesis that the 
 objects must conform to our cognition.' 
 
 We thus assume concepts having an a priori reference to 
 objects. These concepts are neither empirical intuitions nor 
 pure intuitions. They are acts of pure thought.' The mind 
 of man carries order and regularity into the phenomena 
 which we call nature. If originally it had not placed them 
 there, it would never find them in nature." We thus form by 
 anticipation an idea of a science of the knowledge which be- 
 longs to the pure understanding and reason, and by which 
 we think objects entirely a priori. The science which de- 
 termines the origin, the extent, and the objective validity of 
 such knowledge may be called transcendental logic.^ 
 
 Of the understanding, various definitions have been given. 
 It has been called the spontaneity of knowledge — as opposed 
 to the receptivity of the senses — the faculty of thinking, of 
 concepts, of judgments. These explanations closely ex- 
 amined amount to the same. We may now characterize the 
 understanding as the faculty of rules^ 
 
 Objective rules, necessarily inherent in our knowledge of 
 an object, are called laws. Although experience teaches us 
 many laws, yet these are only particular determinations of 
 higher laws. The highest among them, to which all others 
 are subject, spring a priori from the understanding. They 
 are not derived from experience, but, on the contrary, impart 
 to phenomena their regularity, and thus make experience 
 possible. The understanding therefore is not only a power 
 of making rules by a comparison of phenomena. It is itself 
 the law-giver of nature. Without the understanding, nature, 
 that is, a synthetical unity of the manifold of phenomena ac- 
 cording to rules, would be nowhere to be found, as phe- 
 nomena cannot exist without us, but only in our sensibility.^ 
 
 '111,17,18. ^111,85. mi, 582. 
 
 *ni,8s. ^111,583. «Ibid. 
 
95] KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF jyyo 17 
 
 The reply of Kant to Hume, in which the Konigsberg 
 philosopher makes causality a " function of the understand- 
 ing " is of the profoundest significance. The proclamation 
 of the human mind as the law-giver of nature marks a turn- 
 ing-point in the whole history of metaphysics. Kant was 
 the first who dared say: it may sound exaggerated and 
 absurd to say that the understanding is the source both of 
 the laws and of the unity of nature. It is correct neverthe- 
 less, and accords with experience.' It is like the thought of 
 Copernicus, who, finding the explanation of the heavenly 
 motions proceeded poorly on the assumption of the whole 
 host of stars turning around the spectator, made trial of 
 better success by turning the spectator and leaving the stars 
 at rest.' 
 
 The thought is of Leibnitzian genealogy. Lockean sen- 
 sualism subscribed the scholastic Nihil est in intellectu quod 
 non fuerit in sensu. It was Leibnitz who added : Nisi in- 
 tellectus ipse^ in a sense very dififerent from Cartesian 
 Dualism. 
 
 However, Kant puts in as strong an anti-Leibnitzian in- 
 gredient. It would vitiate his concepts of sensibility and 
 phenomena and render his doctrine useless and empty if he 
 were to accept the Leibnitz- Wolffian view that our whole 
 sensibility is but a confused representation of things, con- 
 taining what belongs to them under an accumulation of 
 qualities and partial concepts, which we do not consciously 
 disentangle. The distinction between confused and well- 
 ordered concepts, he objects, is logical only. It does not 
 touch the contents of our knowledge. By thus representing 
 the difference between the sensible and the intelligible as 
 only logical, the Leibnitz-Wolffian philosophy gave a wrong 
 direction to all investigation into the nature and origin of 
 our knowledge. That difference, according to Kant, is in 
 1 III, 583. 2 III, 18. ' Nouveaux Essais, II, 12. 
 
1 8 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 [96 
 
 truth transcendental. It affects not only the form, as more 
 or less confused, but the origin and contents. By our sensi- 
 bility we do not know the nature of things confusedly. We 
 do not know it at all. Apart from our subjective condition, 
 the object, as represented and qualified by our sensibility, is 
 nowhere to be found. It cannot possibly be found, since its 
 form, as phenomenal appearance, is determined by those 
 very subjective conditions." This intuition is a priori in us. 
 It is in us before any perception of an object.' 
 
 How can an external intuition preceding the objects take 
 place in the mind, and how can it a priori determine the ob- 
 jects ? Obviously it can do so only by inhering in the sub- 
 ject as its formal capacity for being affected by objects so 
 as to obtain an immediate presentation or intuition of the 
 same. In other words, it can only do so by being the gen- 
 eral form of the external sense of the subject.^ 
 
 Why did Kant place himself in strenuous opposition to 
 Leibnitz at so vital a point? The reply can be put into a 
 single sentence : Our explanation alone renders comprehen- 
 sible the possibility of geometry considered as a synthetic 
 a priori cognition.* 
 
 An equally good a priori basis for number is furnished by 
 Kant's metaphysical treatment of time. The pure image of 
 all quantities for the external sense is space. The pure 
 image of all objects of sense, generally, is time. Now, the 
 pure schema for quantity, regarded as a concept of the 
 understanding, is number. Number is a presentation com- 
 prising the successive addition of homogeneous units. Num- 
 ber, therefore, is simply unity in the synthesis of the manifold 
 in a homogeneous intuition accomplished by my generating 
 time itself while apprehending my intuition.^ 
 
 'in, 73. nil, 61. sibid. 
 
 *Ibid. mi, 144. 
 
97] KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF i-no 19 
 
 Having made time and space forms of human intuition, 
 and the Categories, or pure concepts' of the understanding, 
 functions of the " unity of apperception," Kant relegates to the 
 Dialectics of Pure Reason the ideas relating to God, universe 
 and soul. They are regulative, not constitutive. The Criti- 
 cal System is based upon the thesis : The speculative use of 
 reason does not reach beyond the objects of possible exper- 
 ience.^ 
 
 We have outlined the Critical System. The caution is not 
 amiss that this outline lays no claim to completeness. For 
 instance, Kant is responsible for much demolition and re^ 
 fashioning of Aristotelian logic. Outside of the Baconian 
 rebellion, his attempt is the first attended with important 
 and lasting consequences. Our dealings with the Critique 
 are limited by a special purpose. This outline, besides, is 
 merely for preliminary orientation. At this moment we are 
 content to have shown that Kant, trained in natural science 
 and mathematics, primarily under Newton, and dissatisfied 
 with the psychogenetic philosophy of Locke, as well as with 
 the rationalistic metaphysics of Leibnitz, mainly because he 
 understood as none before him the force of Hume's argu- 
 ment, made the attempt to pilot human reason between the 
 two rocks of mysticism and skepticism.^ He set aside the 
 noumenal or inteUigible world to Practical Reason, whilst as- 
 . signing to speculative reason the definite limits of exper- 
 ience. He wished to keep open to human reason its entire 
 field of activity in the division suited to its purposes.^ 
 
 2. Kant and Locke 
 
 One principle is of fundamental importance to understand- 
 ing Kant. The Critique is a treatise on metaphysics. It is 
 not a treatise on psychology. It considers not the origin 
 
 1 IV, 364, note. '^ III,' 113 ' Ibid. 
 
20 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 [98 
 
 but the validity of the basic assumptions implied in thinking. 
 All our knowledge begins with the senses.^ But that the 
 objects themselves, as for instance, material nature, should 
 be subject to principles determined according to mere 
 concepts, is something, at all events, extremely contradictory.^ 
 It is this seeming impossibility, which is yet a fact, on 
 which Kant establishes his critical principles. The begin- 
 ning of our knowledge from the senses is a beginning in time 
 and can furnish no starting-point for Kant, though it might 
 for Locke, Kant refusing to acknowledge Locke's "falsely 
 pretended genealogy of metaphysics from the rabble of 
 common experience." Kant does not controvert the psy- 
 chogenetics of Locke. He simply does not acknowledge 
 them as metaphysics. 
 
 Kant's classification of philosophical schools is, on this 
 principle of division, perfectly plain. With reference to the 
 origin of the pure concepts of reason, namely, whether they 
 are derived from experience or originate independently of 
 experience, in reason, Aristotle may be looked upon as the 
 head of the Empiricists, Plato as that of the Noologists, 
 Locke, who followed Aristotle, and Leibnitz, who followed 
 Plato — though at a sufficient distance from his mystical 
 system — have not been able to bring the dispute to any 
 conclusion. 
 
 Epicurus, never allowing his syllogisms to go beyond the 
 limits of experience, was far more consistent in his sensual 
 system, at least, than Aristotle and Locke, more particularly 
 the latter, who, having derived all concepts and principles 
 from experience, goes so far in their application as to main- 
 tain that the existence of God and the immortality of the 
 soul, both of which lie beyond possible experience, can be 
 proved with the evidence of a mathematical proposition.' 
 By observations on the play of our thoughts and on the 
 '111,247. mi, 249. "111,561. 
 
99 J KANT'S INA UG URAL DJSSER TA TION OF 1770 2 1 
 
 natural laws of the thinking self derived from them, we have 
 before us an empirical psychology, a psychology of the in- 
 ternal sense, which perhaps explains its manifestations, but 
 can never help us to understand properties that do not fall 
 under experience, or to teach apodictically anything touch- 
 ing the nature of thinking beings in general.' 
 
 Kant admits that an investigation of the first efforts of our 
 cognitive faculty, beginning with single perceptions and ris- 
 ing to general concepts, is no doubt very useful ; we thank 
 Locke for having been the first to open the way.^ But he 
 complains that Locke by his ultra-experiential extension of 
 experiential results threw wide open the gates to mysticism, 
 since reason, once having authority on its side, is not to be 
 kept within bounds by recommendations of moderation.' 
 The " mysticism " hits at Berkeley, for in Kant's belief all 
 genuine Idealism is of mystic intent, and can be of none 
 other.* However that may be, the Categories are concepts 
 a priori. They are independent of experience. 
 
 Does Kant owe nothing to Locke? Through a certain 
 range of their intellects there is much kinship. A contem- 
 porary reviewer of the Critique of Pure Reason delivered 
 himself of the opinion : "This work is a system of the higher 
 Idealism." With a sarcastic acerbity unusual in him, Kant 
 replies : " For goodness' sake don't say higher. As to high 
 towers and the metaphysically great men resembling them, 
 there is usually about them much wind. They are not for me. 
 My place is the fertile bathos of experience."" A rejoinder 
 like this might as easily be Locke's as Kant's. Other pas- 
 sages may be quoted having a Lockean cast, such as the 
 illustrative paragraph, which was much condensed in the 
 second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, at the end of 
 
 '111,277. ^111,108. '111,113- 
 
 *IV, 123, note. 5 IV, 121, note. 
 
22 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF i-jyo [lOO 
 
 the treatment of Space.' From such passages we might go 
 on to : The image is a product of the empirical faculty of the 
 productive imagination, while the schema of sensuous con- 
 cepts, such as of the figures in space, is a product, and, so to 
 speak, a monogram of the pure imagination a priori;^ and 
 thence to : Even the representation of space and time is a 
 pure schema, always referring to that productive imagina- 
 tion.' One might thus be tempted to make out a genealogy 
 from Locke for the Form and Principles of the Sensible 
 World. 
 
 But we are to take into serious account such passages as 
 the following, written, by the way, against Berkeleian Ideal- 
 ism, not for or against Locke. It was conceded long before 
 Locke's time, generally, however, after him, that without 
 prejudice to the actual existence of external things, we may 
 say of a multitude of their predicates that they do not per- 
 tain to these things, but to their phenomena only, having 
 outside of our representation no existence of their own. 
 Here belong warmth, color, taste, etc. Not the slightest 
 ground of inadmissibility can be alleged against my adding 
 to the number of phenomena the so-called primary qualities 
 of bodies, extension, place, and space, with all that apper- 
 tains to it.* 
 
 Was Kant's classical division of judgments into analytical 
 and synthetic suggested by Locke ? — The following is Kant's 
 reply : I find a suggestion of this division as early as 
 Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding. Having spoken 
 of the different connection of presentations and judgments 
 and its sources, one being placed in identity or contradiction 
 — analytical judgments — the other in the existence of the 
 presentations in one subject — synthetic judgments — he con- 
 fesses that our knowledge — a priori — of that existence is 
 very narrow and almost nothing. There being in what he 
 1 in, 63. '^ III, 143- " in, 1 5 1 . * IV, 38. 
 
I O I ] KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 2 3 
 
 says of this species of cognition so little that is definite and 
 reduced to rules, it is no wonder that no one, especially not 
 even Hume, has taken occasion thence to engage in reflec- 
 tions on this species of propositions. Principles general and 
 yet definite one does not readily learn from others who had 
 but a dim foreshadowing. One must have arrived at them 
 by independent reflection. After that one finds them where 
 certainly one should not at first have done so, because even 
 the authors themselves ware not aware that such an idea lay 
 at the core of their remarks. People that never do any in- 
 dependent thinking, nevertheless possess acuteness of sight 
 to detect what is pointed out to them to have been already 
 said in places where previously nobody could see it'. 
 
 3. Kant and Berkeley 
 
 Having dealt elsewhere with the alleged kinship between 
 Criticism and Berkeleianism, we shall here dismiss the sub- 
 ject with a single remark : The one reference in the Disser- 
 tation to empirical Idealism is against it''. 
 
 ^. Kant, Hume and Common Sense 
 
 The German homologue of the Common Sense of the 
 Scottish philosophy is the appeal to the gesunden Menschen- 
 verstand. Of this common sense and commonplace philoso- 
 phy, Mendelssohn and Basedow were well-known representa- 
 tives. Kant's verdict on this school we have, as we have his 
 verdict on Associationism, namely, incidentally to a discus- 
 sion of Hume. We shall give it substantially in the words 
 of Kant : 
 
 Hume in the main started from a single but important 
 
 metaphysical concept, namely, that of the connection pf 
 
 cause and effect, implying the consequent concepts of force, 
 
 action, etc. He challenged reason to answer to his question- 
 
 iIV, 18. '11,404. 
 
24 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF I770 [i02 
 
 ing that anything can be so quahfied that by positing it 
 something else is posited necessarily. He proved that it is 
 wholly impossible for reason to think such a connection a 
 priori from concepts. He inferred that in the concept of 
 causality reason is completely self-deceived, certain presen- 
 tations having been brought by imagination and experience 
 under the Law of Association, and the subjective necessity 
 thence arising having been palmed off for objective. Hence 
 he concluded that reason has no. faculty to think such con- 
 nections, even in a general way. If, nevertheless, it did do 
 so, its concepts would be mere fictions, and its pretended a 
 priori cognitions nothing but common experience with a false 
 hall-mark. This was as much as to say: There is no such 
 thing as metaphysics, and there can be none. The conclu- 
 sion, though hasty and incorrect, was at least founded on 
 investigation. 
 
 It is impossible to see without a degree of pain how the 
 point of the problem was completely missed by his oppo- 
 nents, Reid, Oswald, Beattie, and finally Priestley. In order 
 to satisfy the problem, his opponents would have had to 
 penetrate very deeply into the nature of reason, as far as ex- 
 clusively occupied with pure thought, That did not suit 
 them. Consequently they invented the commodious way of 
 braving it out by an appeal to Common Sense. Common 
 Sense is a great gift of heaven, but to appeal to it as an 
 oracle when insight and science have run down to heel-taps 
 is a subtile invention for enabling the shallowest babbler 
 bravely to engage and hold out with the profoundest mind. 
 The appeal is nothing but an appeal to the judgment of the 
 crowd. I should fancy Hume's claim to common sense was 
 as good as Beattie's, and besides he could claim something 
 that Beattie did not possess, to wit, critical reason. 
 
 I frankly confess that David Hume's reminder was exactly 
 what broke my dogmatic slumbers and gave a totally differ- 
 
1 03 ] KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 2 5 
 
 ent direction to my investigations in the field of speculative 
 philosophy. Commencing from a well-founded, though not 
 elaborated, thought, one may fairly hope, by continued 
 reflection, to get on farther than the keen-witted man whom 
 one had to thank for the first light. I soon found that the 
 concept of cause and effect is far from being the only one by 
 which the understanding thinks a priori the connection of 
 things ; but that, on the contrary, these concepts constitute 
 the whole of metaphysics. When from a single principle I 
 had succeeded in ascertaining their number, I went at deduc- 
 ing them, being now assured that they were not, as Hume 
 had doubted, derived from experience, but from the pure 
 understanding.' 
 
 To perceive the force of this confession as to Hume's in- 
 fluence on Kantian metaphysics it must be remembered that 
 Kant divided all contestants in the field into Naturalists and 
 Scientists. The first class includes the common sense con- 
 troverters of Hume, described thus : The naturalist of pure 
 reason lays down as his principle that more can be achieved 
 by means of common reason, without science, than through 
 speculation. It is as if one should maintain that the magni- 
 tude and distance of the moon can be better determined by 
 the naked eye than by a roundabout mathematical calcula- 
 tion. This is mere misology reduced to principles.^ It is 
 plain that Kant did not need to be delivered from the Com- 
 mon Sense or Naturalist philosophers by Hume. 
 
 Those following a scientific method have the choice of pro- 
 ceeding either skeptically or dogmatically.*' In Kantian 
 phraseology, dogmatism, therefore, applies both to the sen- 
 sualism of Locke and the rationalism of Leibnitz. The 
 awakening and directive power of Hume must be measured 
 upon this understanding of the term. 
 
 iIV, 6, 7, 8. 2111,562. 2 Ibid. 
 
26 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 [104 
 
 What has been said in reference to Locke and Kant is ap- 
 pHcable to Kant and Hume. Through a certain range their 
 minds were profoundly similar. The following remarks of 
 Kant on Hume are just as true of himself. Hume called this 
 destructive philosophy itself metaphysics, and attributed to 
 it great value. Metaphysics and morals, he says, are the 
 most important branches of science ; mathematics and 
 natural science are not worth half as much. But in this pass- 
 age the acute man had reference only to the negative use, 
 which results from the moderation of the exaggerated claims 
 of speculative reason in removing the many endless and per- 
 secuting quarrels which confuse mankind.^ 
 
 Kant's cardinal objection to Hume is : He lost out of sight 
 the damage arising from depriving reason of the most import- 
 ant outlooks in whose direction alone it can stake out to the 
 will the highest goal of its endeavors.'' That Hume obtained 
 no influence on the Practical Philosophy of Kant is, there- 
 fore, plain. That his influence on the speculative Kantianism 
 was of the greatest moment is just as obvious. How far had 
 the latter influence gone when the Dissertation was written? 
 We shall venture a hypothesis. 
 
 The Dissertation consists of two unequally developed 
 parts. What is said on the Sensible World is not far from 
 the Transcendental Aesthetic. Kant's long mathematical 
 training and the impact of Hume's skepticism combined. 
 
 The rest of the Dissertation by comparison with the 
 Critique is immature. The war on spurious concepts in the 
 latter part of the Dissertation is in Hume's spirit, but skep- 
 ticism has not fully done its work. There are, to be sure, 
 other displacements of Leibnitzian notions, evidently due, 
 however, to Newtonian rather than Humean influences. In 
 
 1 IV, 6, note. 2 Ibid. 
 
I05] KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 27 
 
 the process of developing this portion of the Dissertation 
 into the Transcendental Logic, Hume was overturned by the 
 deduction of the Categories. This, together with the 
 schematism of the understanding and the synthesis of the 
 pure productive imagination, replaces the bare spontaneity 
 of the Dissertation. Kant gave over what he could not hold 
 against skepticism to the Dialectics of Pure Reason, reserv- 
 ing nothing but what he needed for Practical purposes. 
 The Intelligible World was thus partly discriminated against 
 as transcendent; partly, though legitimated as transcend- 
 ental, it was restricted to its immanent use in experience. 
 Thus vanished the Intelligible World with the sole exception 
 of the empty but necessary notion of the Noumenon = X. 
 The reaction of this process of systematization in the In- 
 telligible World upon the Sensible World answers for what 
 difference there is between the Transcendental Aesthetic and 
 the corresponding part of the Dissertation. 
 
 5. The Vital Change 
 
 The Dissertation is the Promethean statue begun. But 
 the Critique is more than the statue finished. The vital 
 spark has been introduced. 
 
 The idea of the Categories of the understanding as 
 functions of the spontaneous " unity of apperception " ex- 
 panded. Extending upward, the unity of apperception be- 
 came the supreme regulative where it could no longer be 
 the constitutive principle. Extending through schematism 
 and productive imagination, it fused and welded Transcen- 
 dental Aesthetic into one system with the other portions of 
 the Critique. This synthesis of the spontaneous unity of 
 apperception is the pervading motor force of the Critique. 
 It is literally the vital principle. Tt makes the Critique what 
 it is, and what the Dissertation is not. Being an all-pervad- 
 ing principle, no one quotation can show its force. The 
 
J2 8 KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 [ 1 06 
 
 following citations are merely illustrative. Space, repre- 
 sented as an object, as we actually need to do in geometry, 
 contains more than the mere form of intuition, namely, a 
 synthesis of the manifold. In the Aesthetic I enumerated it 
 merely under sensibility, though it presupposes a synthesis 
 not pertaining to the senses.' The synthesis of apprehension 
 which is empirical must necessarily conform to the synthesis 
 of apperception which is intellectual and contained wholly 
 a priori in the Category. It is one and the same spontaneity, 
 which in the former under the name of imagination, and in 
 the latter under the name of understanding, introduces con- 
 nection into the manifold intuition,^ and it is not more 
 strange that the laws of natural phenomena must necessarily 
 agree with the understanding and its a priori form, that is, 
 its faculty of generally connecting the manifold, than that 
 the sensuous phenomena themselves must agree with the 
 a priori form of sensuous intuition. Phenomena do not 
 exist in themselves, but only relatively to the subject as far 
 as it has senses. Exactly so laws do not exist in the phe- 
 nomena, but only relatively to the subject in whom these 
 inhere.' 
 
 This synthesis constituting a single experience, one nature, 
 one sole unity of apperception, is absent from the Disserta- 
 tion. This vindication of the laws of nature by unity of ap- ' 
 perception is far more than a reply to Hume, though a reply 
 to Hume none the less. It marks the introduction of a 
 principle foreign to all previous philosophy. This novel 
 idea of a synthesis by the spontaneous unity of apperception 
 sets the absolute limits to Hume's influence. In the Disser- 
 taiion the skeptical influence was barely begun. 
 
 6. Leibnitz versus Experience 
 The highest problem of Transcendental Philosophy is: 
 1 III, 132, note. 2 III, 133, note. » III, 133-4. 
 
lOfj KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 29 
 
 How is experience possible? — Space and time subjectively 
 considered are forms of sensibility. But to form a concept 
 of them as objects of pure intuition — without doing which 
 we could say nothing of them — requires a priori the concept 
 of a compound. This requires the concept of a synthesis of 
 the manifold. It consequently requires the synthetic unity 
 of apperception in connecting this manifold. But this unity 
 of consciousness by reason of the difference of intuitive pre- 
 sentations of objects in space and time needs different func- 
 tions in order to connect them. These functions are termed 
 Categories, and are a priori concepts of the understanding. 
 They do not of themselves alone form the foundation for the 
 general knowledge of an object, but they do for the cogni- 
 tion of an object given in empirical intuition. This cogni- 
 tion when obtained is experience. The empirical, that by 
 which an object is given as existing, is termed sensation or 
 impression, constituting the matter of experience ; called, 
 when connected with consciousness, perception. To this 
 must be added the form, that is to say, the synthetic unity of 
 apperception in the understanding, in order to produce exper- 
 ience as empirical knowledge.^ 
 
 The Leibnitz-WolfiSan philosophy was elaborated in the 
 belief that in addition to the Aristotelian law of Contradiction 
 it had given philosophers a new test, the Law of Sufficient 
 Cause, for the existence of things as distinct from their con- 
 ceptual possibility, and the proposition of the difference be- 
 tween confused and distinct presentation as a discriminative 
 test of intuition from conceptual knowledge. 
 
 With all this elaboration, it unwittingly remained in the 
 field of logic. It took not one step forward towards meta- 
 physics, let alone in metaphysics. The proposition : Every- 
 thing is a consequence, can belong, as far as it goes, to logic 
 
 ivm, 536-7. 
 
3 o KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 [108 
 
 only. Were it to be valid of things, we should have to re- 
 gard everything as consequent upon the existence of some- 
 thing else; the Sufficient Cause could be found nowhere. 
 From this absurdity refuge was taken in the proposition that 
 a thing may have the cause of its existence in itself ; that it 
 may exist as a consequence of itself. But if the absurdity is 
 not to be obvious, this proposition again must be applied 
 not to things, but only to judgments, and to none but analyt- 
 ical judgments at that.' 
 
 As to distinct and indistinct presentations, Leibnitz held 
 that the former mode, which Kant calls intuition merely, is 
 really a confused concept of the object. According to Leib- 
 nitz, consequently, intuition is distinct from the concepts of 
 things, not specifically, but only in the degree of conscious- 
 ness. The intuition of a body would give in the continuous 
 consciousness of all the presentations contained in it, a con- 
 cept of the body as an aggregate of monads. In this way 
 the proposition : Bodies consist of monads, could arise from 
 experience merely by the analysis of the perception, provided 
 we could see sharply enough with an adequate consciousness 
 of the partial presentations^ 
 
 This Leibnitzian view, Kant maintains, is not only sub- 
 versive of the apodictic certainty of mathematics but opposed 
 to geometrical experience. The co-existence of these 
 monads is represented as possible in space only. The meta- 
 physician of the Leibnitzian school must admit that space is 
 merely the empirical and confused presentation of the co- 
 existence of the manifold externally to each other. If he 
 does, how can he assert the three dimensions of space as an 
 apodictic a priori proposition ? From the clearest con- 
 sciousness of all the partial presentations of a body he could 
 not get by analysis the necessity of that proposition. If. he 
 assumes it as the necessary a priori foundation for every 
 'VIII, 533-40. 2 Ibid. 
 
109] KANTS INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 31 
 
 bodily presentation, how will he explain the necessity, since 
 this mode of presentation has only empirical origin, which 
 can furnish no necessity? Passing by this requirement, let 
 him assume space with this property of it. No matter what 
 the quality of that alleged confused presentation, geometry 
 demonstrates to him, not by concepts hovering in the air, 
 but by construction of concepts, that space, and hence that 
 which fills it, to wit, a body, absolutely does not consist of 
 monads, that is, simple parts. Thus the confession is forced 
 that intuition, the presentation of space, for instance, on the 
 one hand, and conception, on the other, are modes of presen- 
 tation of different species. Intuition cannot by merely re- 
 solving the confusion of presentation be converted into con- 
 cepts. Exactly the same reasoning holds for the presenta- 
 tion of time.' 
 
 The untenableness of the Leibnitzian view becomes more 
 glaring when from mathematics we go on to physics. Ac- 
 cording to mere concepts of the understanding it is self-con- 
 tradictory to think of two things as existing outside of each 
 other which in respect to all internal determinations of quan- 
 tity and quality are absolutely one and the same. It is one and 
 the same thing thought twice. In other words, we have nu- 
 merically one. This is Leibnitz's Identity of the Indiscernible. 
 
 He attached no little importance to it. Nevertheless it 
 runs sharply counter to reason. For it is inconceivable why 
 a drop of water in one place should prevent the existence of 
 an exactly similar drop in some other place. This proves 
 immediately that things in space must not be represented by 
 concepts of the understanding as things in themselves, but 
 according to their sensual intuition as phenomena; that 
 space is not a quality or relation of things in themselves, 
 and that pure concepts of the understanding by themselves 
 constitute no cognition.^ 
 
 'VIII, 533-540- 'VIII, 542. 
 
3 2 KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 [no 
 
 The trouble throughout is, we see, that Leibnitz did not 
 recognize a priori intuition as a principle at all. He intel- 
 lectualized it by converting it into confused concepts. This 
 absence of an intuitional principle was the reason why he 
 held to be impossible what could not be represented by pure 
 concepts of the understanding. His principle of Sufificient 
 Cause, a priori intuition being dispensed with, and the rep- 
 resentation of the principle being thus reduced to mere a 
 priori concepts, produced the consequence that all things 
 considered metaphysically are reality and negation, being 
 and non-being. According to him, pain would have for its 
 reason only an absence of pleasure, vice absence of virtuous 
 impulses, and the rest of a body only the absence of moving 
 force. He failed to consider that in intuition, in space, for 
 instance, one reality, namely, a motor force, may be opposed 
 to another reality, namely, a motor force in the contrary 
 direction, while quite analogously, in internal intuition, real 
 motives may be opposed in the same subject. Thus Leib- 
 nitz originated the principle, obnoxious to sound sense and 
 even to morality, that all evil considered as cause is equal to 
 zero. His Sufficient Cause, being posited in mere concepts, 
 did not render the slightest assistance in going beyond 
 analytical judgments. 
 
 His system of Pre-Established Harmony, though really 
 intended to explain the communion between the soul and 
 the body, had to be directed, to begin with, to the general 
 explanation of the communion of substances, by virtue of 
 which they constitute one whole. Substances, by the very 
 concept, must be represented as completely isolated. If 
 they are to be mundane substances, their community must 
 be purely ideal, and cannot be real physical influence. The 
 originator of their existence must be assumed an artist who 
 has arranged these completely isolated substances so as to 
 
Ill] KANT 'S IN A UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 3 3 
 
 harmonize as if they did influence each other. Thus origi- 
 nated the system of Pre-Established Harmony, the oddest 
 figment in philosophy, simply because everything was to be 
 explained by concepts. 
 
 Taking, on the contrary, the pure intuition of space as the 
 a priori foundation of all external relations, all substances 
 are connected so as to render physical influence possible. 
 They constitute one whole. All things in space forming the 
 world, and there being but one space, several worlds external 
 to each other become impossible. This proposition of the 
 unity of the world is absolutely indemonstrable if the proof 
 is to be by concepts not founded upon intuition.^ 
 
 We have expressly excluded the discussion of Berkeleian- 
 ism from this paper. But we make an exception of the fol- 
 lowing quotation, as it is just as applicable to Leibnitzianism : 
 "The thesis of all genuine Idealists, from the Eleatic School 
 down to Bishop Berkeley, is contained in this formula : All 
 cognition by sense and experience is mere seeming ; only 
 in the ideas of the pure understanding and reason is truth. 
 The principle perennially ruling and determining my Ideal- 
 ism is, on the contrary : All cognition of things from pure 
 understanding or from pure reason exclusively is mere seem- 
 ing, and only in experience is truth." ^ 
 
 Assigning any concept either to sensibility or to the pure 
 understanding, and calling the assignment its transcendental 
 placed the achievement of the Dissertation can be expressed 
 substantially in one sentence. It transfers a series of Leib- 
 nitzian concepts from their transcendental place in the pure 
 understanding to their transcendental place in pure intuition. 
 This is the foundation of the Transcendental Aesthetic. 
 'VIII, 544, 545. '^IV, 122. 'Ill, 229, 230. 
 
3 4 KANT'S IN A UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 [112 
 
 8. The Nouveaux Essais and the Dissertation 
 
 Of course this is to concede that the building-stones of the 
 Dissertation are by original extraction from the Leibnitzian 
 quarry. One may demur to locating the exact spot whence. 
 
 A recent worthy writer fixes upon the Nouveaux Essais 
 sur r Entendement Humain. Having outgrown the meta- 
 physics of the schools, Kant had long examined the theories 
 of the empiricists. They had not satisfied him. On the 
 contrary, his intent remained to find a new foundation for 
 metaphysics, and he followed Lambert's attempt to begin by 
 discriminating the form from the content of cognition. Now, 
 the eternal truths were shown by Leibnitz to be virtually 
 contained in sensuous experience itself as invohmtary forms 
 of relation, the reflection of the understanding setting them 
 forth into clear and distinct consciousness. This principle of 
 virtual innateness is the backbone of the Kantian Inaugural 
 Dissertation. The metaphysical truths lie in the soul as 
 laws of its activity, becoming functions on the occasion of 
 experience, and thus the object and the content of cognition 
 by the understanding.' 
 
 The accent on " virtual innateness " is disputable. In his 
 letter of the 2d of September, 1770, sending the Dissertation 
 to Lambert, Kant tells his correspondent: "About a year 
 since I attained that concept which I do not fear ever to be 
 obliged to alter, though I may have to widen it, and by which 
 all sorts of metaphysical questions can be tested in accord- 
 ance with entirely safe and easy criteria, and a sure decision 
 reached as to whether they are solvable or insoluble. It 
 seems that metaphysics ought to be preceded by an especial, 
 though purely negative, science determining the validity and 
 limits of the principles of sensibility, in order that they may 
 not confuse the judgments concerning objects of pure reason. 
 
 ' Windelband, Geschichte der Philosophie, Freiburg, 1892, s. 367. 
 
113] KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 3 5 
 
 Space and time, and the axioms for considering all things 
 under their relations, are, in respect to empirical cognitions, 
 and all objects of the senses, real enough, and actually con- 
 tain the conditions of all phenomena and empirical judg- 
 ments. But when something is thought of not at all as an 
 object of the senses, but by a general and pure concept of 
 the reason as a thing or substance generally, very false posi- 
 tions result by subjecting these things to the fundamental 
 concepts of sensibility. Such a propaedeutical discipline 
 would preserve metaphysics proper from all such admixture 
 of the sensuous." 
 
 This last, it is submitted, is the only concept set forth in 
 the letter which Kant did not alter but which in the Critique 
 he did expand. This epistolary utterance is a reinsistence 
 on the following passage from the Dissertation : " The whole 
 of metaphysical method as regards the sensible and the in- 
 tellectual amounts in substance to the following precept: 
 Beware lest the principles of sensuous knowledge transgress 
 their proper boundaries and afifect the intellectual concepts^ 
 The observation that the application of this criterion to the 
 discrimination of principles is both easy and fertile, is amply 
 borne out in the Critique. In the correspondence on the 
 Dissertation between Kant and Lambert as well as between 
 Mendelssohn and Kant, the discussion turns on space and 
 time. Virtual innateness is not considered. Is it possible 
 that Kant and his correspondents both missed completely 
 den Nerv der Inauguraldissertation ? 
 
 An argument which is not mentioned in the place cited 
 from Windelband might be alleged in favor of the Nouveaux 
 Essais as the source of the Dissertation. Besides being the 
 ripest development of Leibnitz's intellectual philosophy, the 
 Nouveaux Essais are a running commentary on Locke's 
 Essay Concerning Human Understanding. At that period of 
 
 111,418. 
 
36 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF I^70 [114 
 
 his development, such a simuhaneous and adversative eluci- 
 dation of sensualistic and rationalistic dogmatism must have 
 been to Kant more impressive than probably any other book. 
 The real difficulty one has in subscribing unconditionally 
 to Windelband's assertion of specific origin is of a general 
 nature. When all is said, the Nouveaux Essais, virtual 
 innateness and all, is but the final development of the Leib- 
 nitzian Monadology. Now, the fact is, Kant could do a 
 good deal of developing for himself. He was thoroughly 
 versed in Leibnitzianism. On occasion he could write such 
 a Nouveaux-Essaistic passage as this : " No doubt the infinite 
 though extremely obscure perception of the whole universe 
 ever internally present to the soul already contains whatever 
 reality is to be in the thoughts later to be suffused with 
 greater light. The mind from day to day acquires larger 
 cognition merely by turning the attention to some things, 
 while withdrawing from others an equal degree, thus shed- 
 ding an intenser light upon the former. It certainly does 
 not enlarge the compass of absolute reality, the material of 
 all ideas derived from its nexus with the universe remaining 
 the same. But what is formal, consisting in the combina- 
 tion of notions and the application of the attention to their 
 difference and agreement, is certainly changed in a variety 
 of ways. We make a similar observation on the inherent 
 force of bodies. For motions rightly considered being not 
 realities but phenomena, and the inherent force modified by 
 the impact of an external body resisting intrusion by its 
 inner principle of efficacy with as much power as it acquires 
 in the direction of the impelling body, the sum of reality in the 
 phenomenon of a motion of forces is equivalent to that which 
 from the first inhered in the quiescent body, although the inter- 
 nal force which when at rest is indeterminate as to direction 
 does not acquire direction except by an external impulse."' 
 
 ' I. 390-391- 
 
115] KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 3 7 
 
 Nor is this comparison ; it is argument. Kant has been 
 discussing the proposition : The quantity of absolute reality 
 in the world is naturally not changed, neither increasing nor 
 diminishing,^ and the parallel we have quoted leads on to 
 the assertion that though the powers of spirits and their pro- 
 gression to higher perfections seem to be exempt from this 
 law, they are bound by the same.^ It is worth noting that 
 all this appeared in the Nova Dilucidatio a decade before the . 
 Nouveaux Essais. The transmutation of Leibnitzianism by 
 the spatial and temporal requirements of the natural 
 sciences (and these sciences include psychology, cf. IV, 
 357) is precisely similar to the substitution of real for log- 
 ical opposition under Sufficient Cause. 
 
 This is but one illustration of the continual evolution of 
 Kantian from Leibnitzian ideas under the influence of mathe- 
 matical and nature studies. One is a little dubious, there- 
 fore, whether the universality of the phenomenon is quite 
 sufficiently recognized by Windelband's attempt to narrow 
 down the origin of the Dissertation to one work of Leibnitz. 
 
 8. Re-Survey in Conclusion 
 
 It is difficult for a man who has done good work in a 
 branch other than that in which his greatest successes have 
 lain to obtain all the recognition due to his semi-professional 
 achievement. We speak of Daltonism, though it was Goethe 
 and not Dalton who first discovered color-blindness. Simi- 
 larly, Kant's Natural History and Theory of the Heavens is 
 dropped out of sight, and the doctrine presented by him is 
 connected with the name of Laplace, from the point of view 
 of the astronomer justly so. When, however, it is remem- 
 bered that Kant introduced himself to literature by Thoughts 
 on the Correct Estimation of Living Forces, and that prior 
 to the Dissertation he had written papers, short but preg- 
 
 ' I, Zi9- " I. 390- 
 
3 8 KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSERTA TION OF 1770- [116 
 
 nant with sound scientific suggestions on several geological 
 and meteorological subjects, besides lecturing regularly on 
 geography and anthropology, one realizes that his astrono- 
 mical performance, a significent scientific work, is merely the 
 most salient point of an activity in natural science in accord 
 with the most advanced thoughts of his day, and what is still 
 better, vivified by original reflection and the genuinely scien- 
 tific spirit. If much of it is obsolete, as the theory of im- 
 ponderables in De Igne, much survives, and all of it bespeaks 
 a man kept aware by the tenor of his daily work that " in 
 experience alone is truth." 
 
 But his scientific status is discipleship to Newton. Space, 
 as the presupposition to the existence of bodies, is to him 
 axiomatic ; within space and time the existence of motions, 
 the exponents of forces, is a self-evidencing postulate. 
 
 He clearly conceived the idea of applying this fertile 
 quantitative realism to psychological subjects.' Thence to 
 metaphysics was a short step. The robust Baconian habits 
 of thought which he had acquired had played havoc with 
 the scholastic Aristotelianism, and swept away the False 
 Subtilty of the Four Syllogistic Figures. If he still believed 
 himself able to point out the Only Possible Evidence towards 
 the Demonstration of the Existence of God, the whole 
 method of his argument pointed forward already toward the 
 Critique of Teleological Judgment. He already realized that 
 none but the alleged proof was possible.'' The alleged proof 
 was in all but form the Ontological Proof. Neither man's 
 existence, nor that of other spirits, nor that of the bodily 
 world, is presupposed. The proof is indeed deduced from 
 the inherent quality of absolute necessity." In order to attain 
 his position on this subject in the Critiques of Pure and 
 
 ' Cf., The Essay to Introduce the Concept of Ne^tive Quantities into Philosophy. 
 ^n, 198. 8 II, 134. 
 
1 1 7] KANT'S INA UGURAL DISSERTA TION OF 1770 39 
 
 Practical Reason, it was only necessary for him to convince 
 himself that time and labor are lost on the famous ontologi- 
 cal proof.' That point once attained, he could calmly say : 
 " It may be allowable to admit the existence of a Being en- 
 tirely sufficient to serve as the cause of all possible effects, 
 simply in order to assist reason in her search for the unity 
 of causes. But to go so far as to say that suck a being ex- 
 ists necessarily, is no longer the modest language of an ad- 
 missible hypothesis, but the bold assurance of apodictic cer- 
 tainty."' 
 
 He had passed the period when he indulged in Observa- 
 tions on Optimism. His Considerations on the Feelings of 
 the Beautiful and Sublime, for a long time a favorite produc- 
 tion with him, shows the germinal connection in his mind 
 between moral and aesthetic beauty, transmitted possibly 
 from Shaftesbury. His Essay on Diseases of the Head was 
 the forerunner of the Dreams of a Ghost-Seer Elucidated by 
 Dreams of Metaphysics ; and in its turn the third chapter of 
 the first part of the latter bears a heading which might well 
 be a sub-title to the Critique of Pure Reason : Antikabbala ; 
 A Fragment of Common Philosophy for Abolishing Com- 
 munity with the Spirit World. 
 
 Let us indicate somewhat more in detail the thread in this 
 twisted strand of development more particularly connected 
 with the Dissertation. As early as the Nova Dilucidatio, 
 Kant, setting forth only the sinews and joints of the argu- 
 ment, deemed it his business to dissent from the opinions of 
 illustrious men. He insisted on the difference between ratio 
 veritatis and ratio existentiae,^ on the absurdity of anything 
 having the cause of its existence in itself, contentions which 
 show his lines of approach to the empirical realism of the 
 Critical System. The Leibnitzian affirmation that in the 
 
 mi, 411. ''Ill, 417- '1.373- 
 
40 KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSEJi TA TION OF 1770 [ 1 1 g 
 
 whole universe no one thing is equal to any other thing, is 
 classified even at this early stage under Spurious Corollaries 
 from the Principle of the Determining Cause — for Kant al- 
 ready refuses the term Sufficient Cause^as of illegitimate 
 derivation.' 
 
 The Communion of Substances ( Wechselwirkung) of the 
 Critique, it is worth distinctly emphasizing, because its inser- 
 tion among the Categories has been held due to a love of 
 symmetry which in a work like the Critique would be simply 
 childish, is fully formulated even here, a quarter of a century 
 before the appearance of the Critique, as a principle, thus : 
 " No change can happen to substances, except as connected 
 with others, their reciprocal dependence determining the 
 mutual alteration of state/ " The very first application (usus) 
 of this alleged superfluous principle is directed against the 
 Idealists, the second completely subverts Leibnitz's Pre- 
 Established Harmony by its own internal impossibility, Kant 
 laying claim to being the first to demonstrate that the co-ex- 
 istence of the substances of the universe does not suffice to 
 establish their nexus^ 
 
 The historical origin of the Wechselwirkung as a Category 
 apart from causality is plain from the following utterance : It 
 is probable that gravitation is caused by the same nexus of 
 the substances by which they determine space and that it is 
 for this reason the most primitive law of nature, as is the 
 opinion of professed Newtonians. Among those qui se 
 Newtoni asseclas profitentur,* Kant, of course, comprises 
 himself. 
 
 In his Monadologia Physica Kant strove to point to the 
 employment in natural philosophy of metaphysics combined 
 
 '1. 391. '1.393- '1,396. 'I 393- 
 
1 19] KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 41 
 
 with geometry. He is clear on the inadequacy of sense-per- 
 ception to furnish metaphysical knowledge. Those in pur- 
 suit of the phenomena of nature only are forever as far from 
 a recondite knowledge of first causes as he who by climbing 
 higher and higher toward a mountain-top should persuade 
 himself that he will at last hold the heavens in the hollow 
 palm of his hand.' 
 
 The Leibnitzian Monadology, a species of enchanted 
 world, an assumption to which the celebrated man was se- 
 duced by taking sense-presentations considered as phe- 
 nomena, not as one should for a species of presentation en- 
 tirely distinct from concepts, to wit, for intuition, but for a 
 merely confused cognition by concepts,^ is now completely 
 disestablished in Kant's mind. Its place we find taken by 
 the physical monad. A physical element or monad not only 
 is in space, but fills space.^ The monad defines the space of 
 its presence by the sphere of the activity by which it re- 
 strains the closer approach of the monads which are in turn 
 present to it externally.* The force by which a simple 
 physical element occupies its space is the mutually applied 
 force of impenetrability in several elements.* But by the 
 force of impenetrability alone bodies would not have definite 
 volume. There is needed the equally inherent force of at- 
 traction. Both together define the limit of extension.^ 
 
 Descartes, the founder of modern metaphysics, was, by type 
 of mind, mathematical. Leibnitz, the inventor of the Dif- 
 ferential Calculus, was not less eminent as a mathematician 
 than as a metaphysician. By Spinoza the mathematical form 
 in metaphysical disquisition was carried to the last extreme. 
 After such antecedents, the Wolfian school might be excused 
 for believing that the mathematical mode of procedure was 
 the best expository method in philosophy. 
 
 1 1, 459. 2 VIII, 546-7. ' I, 464- 
 
 11,465. ^ *I, 467- «1, 468. 
 
42 KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 [ 1 20 
 
 But Kant introduced his Inquiry into the Evidentness of the 
 Principles of Natural Theology and Morals by claiming that 
 the question is such that, if properly solved, the solution will 
 give a definite form to higher philosophy. If the method 
 can be established by which the highest possible certainty in 
 this kind of cognition can be attained, and a thorough in- 
 sight is had into the nature of this knowledge, the everlast- 
 ing inconstancy of opinions and scholastic sects will be re- 
 placed by a method of teaching prescribed invariably, uniting 
 thoughtful minds to consonant endeavors, as Newton's 
 method in natural science changed the laxity of physical 
 hypotheses into a safe procedure in accordance with exper- 
 ience and geometry/ 
 
 He proceeded to clear the road to the Critique by show- 
 ing that the entire method of philosophizing was wrong; 
 that the imitation of methematics was futile. For mathe- 
 matics obtains all its definitions synthetically, philosophy 
 analytically;^ mathematics considers the universal under the 
 signs in the concrete, philosophy through the signs in the 
 abstract.' Hence philosophical certainty is of an altogether 
 different nature from mathematics.* 
 
 Continuing in this path he published only two years be- 
 fore the Dissertation a paper On the First Ground of the Dif- 
 ference of Regions in Space. Here the transcendental nature 
 of space is reached at last. The argument containing the 
 illustration of the right and left hands, and of the spherical 
 triangles from opposite hemispheres, is taken over from this 
 essay into the Dissertation bodily.^ 
 
 If the exposition has been lucid, we are probably prepared 
 to appreciate the Dissertation as a product of evolution. 
 
 '11,283. ni, 284. m, 286. 
 
 * 11,298. 511,409. 
 
PART II 
 
 De Mundi Sensibilis atpe Intelligibilis Forma et Principiis 
 
 Dissertation on the Form and Principles of the Sen- 
 sible AND THE Intelligible World 
 
 SECTION I 
 
 ON THE IDEA OF A WORLD IN GENERAL 
 
 Paragraph i 
 
 As the analysis of a substantial composite terminates 
 only in a part which is not a whole, that is, in a simple part, 
 so synthesis terminates only in a whole which is not a part, 
 that is, the world. 
 
 In this exposition of the underlying concept I have had 
 regard not only to the marks pertaining to the distinct cog- 
 nition of the object, but somewhat also to the two-fold gen- 
 esis of the concept from the nature of the mind, which, being 
 serviceable to a method of deeper metaphysical insight, by 
 way of example appears to me not a little commendable. 
 For it is one thing, the parts being given, to conceive the 
 composition of the whole by an abstract notion of the intel- 
 lect, and another thing to follow out this general notion con- 
 sidered as a problem of the reason by the cognitive sensuous 
 faculty, that is, to represent it to one's self in the concrete 
 121] 43 
 
44 KANT'S INA UCURAL DISSERTA TION OF 1770 [122 
 
 by a distinct intuition. The former is done through the 
 class concept by composition, as several things are contained 
 either under it or mutually, and hence by intellectual and 
 universal ideas. The latter rests on the conditions of time, 
 inasmuch as the concept of a composite is possible genet- 
 ically, that is by synthesis, by the successive union of part 
 to part, and falls under the laws of intuition. Similarly, a 
 substantial composite being given, we easily attain to the 
 idea of the simple parts by the general removal of the intel- 
 lectual notion of composition; for what remains after the 
 removal of conjunction are the simple parts. But according 
 to the laws of intuitive cognition this is not done, that is, all 
 composition is not removed, except by a regress from the 
 given whole to any possible parts whatsoever — in other words, 
 by an analysis again resting on the condition of time.^ But 
 since in order to a composite a multiplicity, in order to a 
 whole, the allness, of parts is required, neither the analysis 
 nor the synthesis will be complete ; hence neither by the 
 former will the concept of the simple part emerge, nor by the 
 latter the concept of the whole, unless either can be gone 
 through within a time that is finite and assignable. 
 
 But since in a continuous quantity the regress from the 
 whole to assignable parts, and in an infinite quantity the pro- 
 gress from the parts to the given whole are endless, complete 
 analysis in the one and complete synthesis in the other di- 
 rection are impossible ; hence neither the whole in the first 
 
 ' To the words analysis and synthesis a two-fold meaning is commonly given; 
 for the synthesis is either qualitative, a progress in a series of subordinates from 
 the reason to the consequence, or quantitative, a progress in a series of co- 
 ordinates from the given part through its complements to the whole. Similarly, 
 analysis, taken in the first sense, is a regress from the consequence to the reason, 
 but in the latter meaning a regress from a whole to iXs possible or mediate /a?-ft, 
 that is, to the parts of parts; hence it is not a division but a subdivision of the 
 given composite. Synthesis as well as analysis are here taken only in the latter 
 sense. 
 
123] ^A^T'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF ijjo 45 
 
 case as to composition, nor the composite in the latter case as 
 to totality can be thought completely in accordance with the 
 laws of intuition. Unthinkable and impossible being vulgarly 
 deemed to have the same meaning, it is plain why the con- 
 cepts of the contimwus as well as that of the infinite are re- 
 jected by most men as concepts whose representation ac- 
 cording to the laws of intuitive cognition is impossible. Al- 
 though I do not here champion these notions, especially not 
 the first, which are considered exploded by many schools, 
 still the following reminder is of the greatest moment. Those 
 who use so perverse an argumentation have fallen into a 
 grave error.' For whatever is repugnant to the laws of the 
 intellect and reason is of course impossible, but that which 
 being the object of pure reason does merely not fall under 
 the laws of intuitive cognition is not so. For here the dis- 
 agreement between the sensuous and the intellectual fac- 
 ulties, whose natures I shall presently explain, indicates 
 nothing except that the abstract ideas which the mind has re- 
 ceived from the intellect can often not be followed out in the 
 
 1 Those who reject the actual .mathematical infinite do not take much trouble. 
 They frame a definition of the infinite from which they can shape out some con- 
 tradiction. The infinite is said by them to be a quantity than which none 
 greater is possible, and the mathematical infinite the multiplicity — of an assignable 
 unit — than which none greater is possible. Having substituted ^«o/ej/ for infinite 
 they easily conclude against an infinite of their own making, as a greatest multi- 
 plicity is impossible; or, they call an infinite multiplicity an infinite number, and 
 show this to be absurd; which is plain enough, but a battle with their own fancy 
 only. But if they would conceive of a mathematical infinite as a quantity which 
 being referred to measure as unity is a multiplicity greater than all number; if, 
 furthermore, they would take note that mensurability here denotes only the rela- 
 tion to the smallness of the human intellect, to which it is given to attain to a de- 
 finite concept of multiplicity only by the successive addition of unit to unit, and 
 to the sum total called number only by going through with this progress within a 
 finite time, they would gain the clear insight that what does not fall in with a cer- 
 tain law of some subject does not on that account exceed all intellection; since an 
 intellect may exist, though not a human one, perceiving a multiplicity distinctly 
 by a single insight, without the successive application of measurement. 
 
46 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF mo [124 
 
 concrete and converted into intuitions. This subjective diffi- 
 culty generally feigns some objective repugnance and easily 
 deceives the incautious, the limits by which the human mind 
 is circumscribed being taken for those by which the essence 
 of things themselves is contained. 
 
 Furthermore, as the argument from intellectual reasonings 
 easily shows that substantial composites being given, whether 
 by the testimony of the senses or otherwise, the simple parts 
 and the world are also given, so does our definition point out 
 causes contained in the nature of the subject why the notion of 
 a world should not seem merely arbitrary and made up, as in 
 mathematics, only for the sake of the deducible consequences. 
 The mind intent upon resolving as well as compounding the 
 concept of a composite demands and presumes boundaries in 
 which it may acquiesce in the former as well as in the latter 
 direction. 
 
 Paragraph 2 
 
 In defining the World the fallowing points require atten- 
 tion : 
 
 I. Matter (in the transcendental sense), that is, \hQ parts 
 which are here assumed to be substances. We might pikinly 
 be regardless of coincidence between our definition and the 
 meaning of the common word, the question being, so to 
 speak, of a problem arising in accordance with the laws of 
 reasoning, namely, how several substances may coalesce into 
 one, and on what condition rests this one's being no part of 
 another. But the force of the word World, as commonly 
 used, of itself falls in with us. For no one will attribute 
 accidents to the World as parts, but as determinations, states; 
 hence the so-called world of the ego, unrestrained by the 
 single substance and its accidents, is not very appositely 
 called a World, unless, perhaps, an imaginary one. For the 
 same reason it is not permissible to refer the successive 
 
125] IC ANT'S INA UG URAL DISSEF TA TION OF 1770 47 
 
 series — namely, of states — as a part to the mundane whole ; 
 for modifications are not parts, but consequences of the sub- 
 ject. Finally, as to the nature of the substances constituting 
 the world, I have not here called into debate whether they 
 be contingent or necessary, nor do I hide such a determina- 
 tion unproved in the definition in order subsequently, as is 
 sometimes done, to draw it thence by some specious argu- 
 mentation. But I shall show further on that their contin- 
 gency can be amply concluded from the conditions here 
 posited. 
 
 II. Form, which consists in the co-ordination of the sub- 
 stances, not in their subordination. For co-ordinates are to 
 be regarded as mutual complements to a whole, subordinates 
 as effect and cause, or generally, as principle and conse- 
 quence. The former relation is reciprocal and homonymous, 
 any correlate in respect to any other being considered as at 
 once determining and determined. The latter is heterony- 
 mous ; on the one hand dependence only, casuality on the 
 other. This co-ordination is conceived as real and objective, 
 not as ideal, and resting in the mere pleasure of a subject 
 making up a whole by the summation of any multiplicity 
 whatever. For the grasping of several things can by no 
 contrivance be made a whole of representation, nor, for that 
 reason, a representation of the whole. Therefore, if there be 
 any totals of substances connected by no bond, a grasping 
 of them together, the mind forcing the multiplicity into ideal 
 oneness, will be called nothing more than a plurality of 
 worlds comprehended in a single thought. But the connec- 
 tion constituting the essential form of a world is looked upon 
 as the principle of the possible influences of the substances 
 composing that world. For an actual influence pertains not 
 to essence but to state, and the transitive forces, the causes 
 of the influences, suppose some principle by which it is pos- 
 sible that the states of several things in other respects exist- 
 
48 KANT'S INA UGURAL DISSERTA TION OF 1770 [126 
 
 ing independently of each other are mutually related as 
 consequences, which principle being abandoned, the possi- 
 bility of transitive force in a world is an illicit assumption. 
 And, furthermore, this form essential to the world is on that 
 account immutable, and exposed to no vicissitude whatever. 
 It is so in the first place for a logical reason, since any 
 change supposes the identity of the subject with determina- 
 tions succeeding one another in turn. Hence the world, 
 remaining the same world through all the states succeeding 
 one another, preserves the same fundamental form. For it 
 does not suffice to the identity of the whole that all the parts 
 be identical, the identity of characteristic composition is re- 
 quired also. But it follows especially from a real cause. For 
 the nature of the world, which is the primary inner principle 
 of whatever variable determinations may pertain to its state, 
 never by any possibility being opposite to itself, is naturally, 
 that is, by itself, immutable ; hence there is given in any 
 world whatever some form ascribable to its nature, constant 
 and invariable, as the perennial principle of any contingent 
 and transitory form pertaining to the state of the world. 
 They who hold this disquisition superfluous are confuted by 
 the concepts of space and time, conditions, as it were, given 
 by their very own selves and primitive, by whose aid, that is 
 to say, without any other principle, it is not only possible 
 but necessary for several actual things to be regarded as re- 
 ciprocally parts constituting a whole. But I shall show 
 presently that these are plainly not rational notions, nor the 
 bonds which they form objective ideas, but phenomena ; and 
 that though they witness, to be sure, some principle which is 
 the common universal bond, it is not set forth by them. 
 
 III. Universality, which is the absolute allness of the apper- 
 taining parts. For, regard being had to any given composite, 
 though it may be besides a part of another, still there always 
 obtains a certain comparative allness, namely, that of the 
 
127] KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF lyyo 49 
 
 parts belonging to it as a particular quantity. But in this 
 case whatsoever things are regarded as mutually parts of 
 whatsoever whole, are understood to be conjointly posited. 
 This absolute totality, apparently an everyday and perfectly 
 obvious concept, especially when, as happens in the defini- 
 tion, it is enunciated negatively, when canvassed thoroughly 
 becomes the crucial test of the philosopher. For it is scarce 
 conceivable how the inexhaustible series of the states of the 
 universe succeeding one another eternally be reducible to a 
 whole comprehending all changes whatsoever. Since it is 
 necessary to very infinitude to be without end, and hence no 
 successive series is given but what is the part of another, 
 completeness or absolute totality is by parity of reasoning 
 plainly excluded. For although the notion of a part can be 
 taken in a universal sense, and although everything contained 
 under this notion, if regarded as posited in the same series, 
 constitutes unity, yet the concept of the whole appears to 
 exact their all being taken simultaneously, which in the case 
 given is impossible. For, although to the whole series noth- 
 ing succeeds, there is given in the succession no posited 
 series to which nothing succeeds, unless it be the last. There 
 will, then, in eternity be something which is last, which is 
 absurd. Perhaps some may think that the difficulty which 
 besets a successive infinite is absent from a simultaneous in- 
 finite, for the reason that apparently simultaneity plainly 
 professes to embrace all at the same time. But, if the simul- 
 taneous infinite be admitted, the successive infinite also will 
 have to be conceded, and the negation of the latter cancels 
 the former. For the simultaneous infinite offers matters 
 everlastingly inexhaustible to a successive progress in infini- 
 tum through its innumerable parts, which numberless series 
 actually being given in the simultaneous infinite, a series 
 though inexhaustible by successive addition could be given 
 as a whole. In solution of the perplexing problem note; 
 
5 o KANT 'S IN A UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 [128 
 
 that both the successive and the simultaneous co-ordination 
 of several things, since they rest upon the concept of time, 
 do not pertain to the intellectual concept of a whole, but only 
 to the conditions of sensuous intuition; hence though not 
 sensuously conceivable, they do not on that score cease be- 
 ing intellectual concepts. For in order to the latter it 
 suffices that co-ordinates be given, no matter how, and that 
 they be thought of as all pertaining to a unit. 
 
 SECTION II 
 
 ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE SENSIBLE AND THE 
 INTELLIGIBLE GENERALLY 
 
 Paragraph 3 
 
 Sensibility is the receptivity of a subject by which it is pos- 
 sible for its representative state to be aflfected in a certain 
 way by the presence of some object. Intelligence, ration- 
 ality, is the faculty of a subject by which it is able to repre- 
 sent to itself what by its quality cannot enter the senses. 
 The object of sensibility is sensuous ; what contains nothing 
 but what is knowable by the intellect is intelligible. In the 
 older schools the former was called phenomenon, the latter 
 noumenon. To the extent to which knowledge is subject to 
 the laws of sensuousness it is sensuous ; to the extent to 
 which it is subject to the laws of intelligence it is intellectual 
 or rational. 
 
 Paragraph 4. 
 
 Since whatever is in sensuous knowledge depends upon 
 the subject's peculiar nature, as the latter is capable of re- 
 ceiving some modification or other from the presence of 
 objects which on account of subjective variety may be differ- 
 ent in different subjects, whilst whatever knowledge is exempt 
 
129] KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 5 i 
 
 from such subjective condition regards the object only, it is 
 plain that what is sensuously thought is the representation 
 of things as they appear, while the intellectual presentations 
 are the representations of things as they are. Now there is 
 in sense representation something which may be called the 
 matter, namely, the sensation, and in addition to this some- 
 thing which may be called th.& form, namely, the appearance 
 of the sensible things, showing forth to what extent a natural 
 law of the mind co-ordinates the variety of sensuous af- 
 fections. Furthermore, as the sensation constituting the 
 matter of sensuous representations argues, to be sure, the 
 presence of something sensible, but depends as to quality on. 
 the nature of the subject, as the latter is modifiable by the 
 object ; exactly so does the form of that representation wit- 
 ness certainly some reference or relation among the sensuous 
 percepts, but itself is not, as it were, the shadowing forth or 
 outlining of the object, but only a certain law inherent in 
 the mind for co-ordinating among themselves sensuous per- 
 cepts arising from the presence of the object. For by form 
 or appearance the objects do not strike the sense, hence in 
 order that various sense-affecting objects may coalesce ii/to 
 some whole of representation, there is need of an inner 
 principle of the mind by which, in accordance with stable 
 and innate laws, that variety shall take on some appearance. 
 
 Paragraph 5 
 
 To sensual cognition then pertains both the matter which 
 is sensation and by which the knowledge is said to be sen- 
 sual, and the form by which, even though we find it without 
 any sensation, the representations are called sensuous. On 
 the other hand, as to intellectual concepts, it is above all to 
 be well noted that the use of the intellect, or of the superior 
 faculty of the soul, is two-fold. By the first use are given 
 the very concepts both of things and relations. This is the 
 
52 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 [130 
 
 real use. By the second use they, whencesoever given, are 
 merely by common marks subordinated to one another, the 
 lower to the higher, and compared among themselves ac- 
 cording to the principle of contradiction. This is called the 
 logical use. The logical use of the intellect is common to all 
 the sciences ; the real use is not. For a cognition given in 
 any wise is regarded either as contained under or as opposed 
 to a mark common to several cognitions, and this either by 
 immediate apposition, as in judgments in order to distinct 
 cognition, or mediately, as in reasoning, in order to adequate 
 cognition. Thus sensuous knowledge being given, sensuous 
 percepts are by the logical use of the intellect subordinated 
 to other sensuous percepts, as to common concepts, and 
 phenomena to the more general laws of phenomena. In this 
 connection it is of the greatest moment to note that cogni- 
 tions must continue to be regarded as sensuous, no matter 
 how great may have been the logical use of the intellect 
 upon them. For they are called sensuous on account of their 
 origin, not of their collation by identity and opposition. 
 Hence, empirical laws, though of the greatest generality, are, 
 nevertheless, sensual, and the principles of sensuous form in 
 geometry, the relations in determinate space, however much 
 the intellect arguing according to logical rules from what is 
 sensuously given, by pure intuition, be employed upon them, 
 do not for that matter pass beyond the class of sense- 
 percepts. That in sense-percepts and phenomena which 
 precedes the logical use of the intellect is called appearance, 
 while the reflex knowledge originating from several appear- 
 ances compared by the intellect is called experience. Thus 
 there is no way from appearance to experience except by 
 reflection according to the logical use of the intellect. The 
 common concepts of experience are termed empirical, its 
 objects phenomena, and the laws as well of experience as of 
 all sensuous cognition generally are called the laws of phe- 
 
1 3 I ] KANT 'S IN A UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 5 3 
 
 nomena. Empirical concepts, then, are not by a reduction 
 to greater universality rendered intellectual in the real sense 
 and do not transcend the species of sensuous cognition, but, 
 however high abstraction may carry them, remain indefinitely 
 sensuous. 
 
 Paragraph 6 
 
 Now as to strictly intellectual concepts in which the use of 
 the intellect is real. Such concepts both of objects and rela- 
 tions are given by the very nature of the intellect, are not 
 abstracted from any use of the senses, and do not contain 
 any form of sensuous knowledge as such. It is needful here 
 to take note of the extreme ambiguity of the word abstract, 
 which, in order not to confuse our disquisition on intel- 
 lectual concepts, must be removed to begin with, for pro- 
 perly we should say abstract from some things, not abstract 
 something. The former denotes that in a concept we give no 
 atention to other matters in whatsoever way they may be 
 connected with it ; but the latter, that it is not given but in 
 the concrete and so as to be separated from what it is con- 
 joined with. Hence an intellectual concept abstracts from 
 everything sensuous, it is not abstracted from sensuous things, 
 and perhaps would be more correctly called abstracting than 
 abstract. Intellectual concepts it is more cautious, therefore, 
 to call pure ideas, and concepts given only empirically, ab- 
 stract ideas. 
 
 Paragraph 7 
 
 From the foregoing it will be seen that it is badly to ex- 
 pound the sensuous to call it the more confusedly known, and 
 the intellectual the distinctly known. For these are only 
 logical distictions and plainly do not touch the data under- 
 lying all logical comparison. The sensuous may be exceed- 
 ingly distinct, while intellectual concepts are extremely con- 
 
54 KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 [132 
 
 fused. The former we observe in the prototype of sensuous 
 knowledge, geometry ; the latter, in the organon of all intel- 
 lectual concepts, metaphysics. It is evident how much toil 
 the latter is expending to dispel the fogs of confusion darken- 
 ing the common intellect, though not always with the happy 
 success of the former science. Nevertheless, any cognition 
 retains the marks of its origin, the former, however distinct, 
 being called by genesis sensuous ; the latter, no matter how 
 confused, remaining intellectual, as for instance, the moral 
 concepts, which are known not experientially but by the 
 pure intellect itself. The writer fears that Wolf by the dis- 
 tinction between the sensuous and the intellectual, which to 
 him is only logical, checked, perhaps wholly, and to the 
 great detriment of philosophy, that noble enterprise of anti- 
 quity of discussing the nature of phenomena and noumena, 
 turning us from the investigation of these to what are fre- 
 quently but logical trifles. 
 
 Paragraph 8 
 
 The primary philosophy containing the principles of the 
 use of pure intellect is metaphysics. But there is a science 
 propaedeutical to it, showing the distinction of sensuous cog- 
 nition from intellectual, a specimen of which we present in 
 this dissertation. Empirical principles not being found in 
 metaphysics, the concepts to be met with in it are not then to 
 be sought for in the senses, but in the very nature of pure 
 intellect; not as connate notions, but as abstracted from laws 
 whose seat is in the mind, by attending to the actions of the 
 mind on the occasion of experience, and hence as acquired. 
 Of this species are possibility, existence, necessity, substance, 
 cause, etc., with their opposites and correlates, which, never 
 entering as parts into any sensual representation, can by no 
 means have been abstracted thence. 
 
133] KANT'S IN A UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 5 5 
 
 Paragraph p 
 The purpose of intellectual concepts is mainly twofold ; in 
 the first place refutative, by which they are of negative use, 
 when, shutting off sensuous concepts from noumena, though 
 not advancing science a hair's breadth, they maintain how- 
 ever its immunity from the contagion of error. In the second 
 place dogmatic, following which the general principles of 
 pure intellect, such as are set forth in ontology or rational 
 psychology, go forth into an exemplar inconceivable except 
 by pure intellect, and the common measure of all other 
 things considered as realities, namely, noumenal perfection. 
 The latter is such either in the theoretical or in the practical 
 sense.' In the former it is the highest being, God. In the 
 latter sense, it is moral perfection. Moral philosophy, then, 
 inasmuch as supplying the first principles of judgment, is not 
 cognized except by pure intellect, and itself belongs to pure 
 philosophy, and Epicurus reducing its criteria to deduction 
 from the sense of pleasure or pain is rightly reprehended, to- 
 gether with some moderns following him a certain distance 
 from afar, as Shaftesbury and his adherents. In any class of 
 things having variable quantity the maximum is the common 
 measure and the principle of cognition. Now the maximum 
 of perfection is called ideal, by Plato, Idea — for instance, his 
 Idea of a Republic — and is the principle of all that is con- 
 tained under the general notion of any perfection, inasmuch 
 as the lesser grades are not thought determinable but by 
 limiting the maximum. But God, the Ideal of perfection, 
 and hence the principle of cognition, is also, as existing 
 really, the principle of the creation of all perfection. 
 
 Paragraph 10 
 To man, no intuition of intellectual concepts is given, only 
 
 ^ Something is considered theoretically when we attend only to what belongs to 
 the thing; practically, when we view what by Uberty should be in it. 
 
56 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 [134 
 
 symbolical cognition, and intellection is granted us only by- 
 universal concepts in the abstract, not by the concrete singu- 
 lar. For all intuition is restricted by some principle of form 
 under which alone anything can be discerned by the mind 
 immediately or as singular, and not merely conceived dis- 
 cursively by general concepts. This formal principle of our 
 intuition — space and time^is the condition under which 
 something can be an object of our senses, and hence as a 
 condition of sensuous knowledge is not a medium for intel- 
 lectual intuition. Besides, all the material of our cognition 
 is given only by the senses, but the noumenon, as such, is 
 not conceivable by representations drawn from sensations ; 
 hence the intellectual concept, as such, is destitute of all 
 data of human intuition. For the intuition of our mind is 
 always passive, and therefore possible only to the extent to 
 which something can affect our senses. But the divine in- 
 tuition, the cause — not the consequence, of objects, being 
 independent, is the archetype, and hence perfectly intel- 
 lectual. 
 
 Paragraph 11 
 
 But although phenomena are properly the appearances of 
 things, but not ideas, or express the inner and absolute 
 quality of objects, their cognition is nevertheless of the truest. 
 For in the first place, being apprehended sensual concepts, 
 they, being consequences, witness the presence of the object, 
 contrary to IdeaHsm ; and as regards judgments concerning 
 that which is sensuously known, since truth in judging con- 
 sists in the agreement of the predicate with the given subject, 
 and since the concept of the subject as a phenomenon is 
 given only by relation to the sensuous cognitive faculty, the 
 sensuously observable predicates being given according to 
 the same, it is plain that the representations of subject and 
 predicate are made according to common laws, and hence 
 give occasion for perfectly true cognition. 
 
135] KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 c 7 
 
 Paragraph 12 
 
 All sense-objects are phenomena, but that which, not 
 touching our senses, contains the form only of sensuality, 
 belongs to pure intuition, that is, an intuition devoid of sen- 
 sations, but not on that account, intellectual. Phenomena of 
 the external sense are examined and set forth in physics ; 
 those of the internal sense in empirical psychology. But 
 pure human intuition is not a universal or logical concept 
 under which, but a singular in which all sensible objects are 
 thought, and hence contains concepts of space and time, which, 
 since they determine nothing concerning sensible objects as 
 to quality, are not the objects of science except as to quantity. 
 Hence pure mathematics considers space in geometry and 
 time in pure mechanics. To these is to be added a certain 
 concept, intellectual to be sure in itself, but whose becoming 
 actual in the concrete requires the auxiliary notions of time 
 and space in the successive addition and simultaneous juxta- 
 position of separate units, which is the concept of number 
 treated in arithmetic. Pure mathematics, then, expounding 
 the form of our entire sensuous cognition, is the organon of 
 all intuitive and distinct knowledge, and since its objects are 
 not only the formal principles of all intuition, but themselves 
 original intuitions, it confers cognition both perfectly true, 
 and the model of the highest degree of clearness to others. 
 There is given, therefore, a science of sensual things, though 
 being phenomena there is not given a real intellection, but a 
 logical one only ; hence it is plain in what sense those bor- 
 rowing from the Eleatic school are to be thought to have 
 denied a science of phenomena. 
 
58 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 [136 
 
 SECTION III 
 
 ON THE PRINCIPLES OF THE FORM OF THE SENSIBLE WORLD 
 
 Paragraph 13 
 
 The principle of the form of a universe is that which con- 
 tains the cause of the universal tie by means of which all 
 substances and their states pertain to one which is called a 
 world. The principle of the form of the sensible world is 
 that which contains the cause of the universal tie of all things 
 regarded as phenomena. The form of the intelligible world 
 acknowledges an objective principle, that is, some cause by 
 which it is the colligation of what exists in it. But the world 
 regarded as phenomenon, that is, in respect to the sensibility 
 of the human mind, acknowledges no principle of form but 
 a subjective one, that is, a certain mental law by which it is 
 necessary that all things qualified for being objects of the 
 senses would seem to pertain necessarily to the same whole. 
 Whatever be, therefore, the principle of the form of the sen- 
 sible world, it will comprise only actual things in as far as 
 thought of as possibly falling under sense-perception ; hence 
 neither immaterial substances, which as such are excluded 
 by definition from the external senses altogether, nor the 
 cause of the world, which, since by it the mind exists and 
 has the power of sense-perception, cannot be the object of 
 the senses. These formal principles of the phenomenal uni- 
 verse which are absolutely primary, universal, and, so to 
 speak, the outlines and conditions of anything else whatso- 
 ever in human sensuous cognition, I shall now show to be 
 two : time and space. 
 
137] KANT'-S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF iTTo eg 
 
 Paragraph i/f. 
 
 OF TIME 
 
 1 . The idea of time does not originate in, but is presupposed 
 by the senses. Whether things falling under sense-perception 
 be simultaneous or in line of succession cannot be repre- 
 sented but by the idea of time ; nor does succession beget 
 the concept of time ; it appeals to it. Hence the notion of 
 time, though acquired by experience, is badly defined by a 
 series of actual things existing one after another, for what 
 the word after means I understand only by the previous 
 concept of time. For those things are after one another 
 which exist at different times, as those are simultaneous 
 which exist at the same time. 
 
 2. The idea of time is singular, not general. For any 
 time whatever is thought only as a part of one and the same 
 unmeasured time. If you think two years you cannot repre- 
 sent them to yourself but in a mutually determinate position, 
 and if they do not immediately follow one the other, you 
 cannot think of them except as connected by some inter- 
 mediate time. Which of different times is first and which 
 later can be defined in no way by any marks conceivable by 
 the intellect, unless you are willing to run into a circle, and 
 the mind discerns it by no more than one intuition. Be- 
 sides, we conceive of all actual things as posited in time, not 
 as contained as common marks under a general notion of 
 time. 
 
 3. The idea of time, therefore, is an intuition, and being 
 conceived before all sensation as the condition of the rela- 
 tions occurring in sensible things, it is not a sensual h\xt pure 
 intuition. + 
 
 4. Time is a continuous quantity and the principle of the 
 laws of continuity in the changes of the universe. For a 
 continuous quantity is one which does not consist of simple 
 
6o KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSERTA TION OF 1770 [138 
 
 parts. But since by time are only thought relatibns without 
 any mutually related data, there is in time — as a quantity — 
 composition, which being conceived wholly removed leaves 
 nothing over. But a composite of which, composition 
 being removed, nothing is left, does not consist of simple 
 parts. Therefore, etc. Any part of time, then, is time; 
 and the simple things in time, namely, the moments, are not 
 parts of it, but termini between which time intervenes. For 
 two moments being given, time is not given, except as in 
 them actualities succeed each other; hence, beside the 
 given moment it is necessary that time be given in the latter 
 part of which there is another moment. 
 
 The metaphysical law of continuity is this: All changes 
 are continuous or flowing, that is, opposite states succeed 
 each other only by an intermediate series of different states. 
 For since two opposite states are in different moments of 
 time, and some time is always intercepted between two mo- 
 ments, in which infinite series of moments the substance is 
 neither in one assignable state nor the other, nor yet in 
 none, it will be in different states, and so on infinitely. 
 
 The celebrated Kastner, calling in question this Leibnitzian 
 law,' calls on its defenders to demonstrate that the continu- 
 ous motion of a point around the sides of a triangle is impos- 
 sible, it being necessary to prove this if the law of continuity 
 be granted. Here is the demonstration required. Let the 
 letters a b c denote the three angular points of a rectilineal 
 triangle. If the point did move continuously over the lines 
 ab, be, ca, that is, over the perimeter of the figure, it would 
 be necessary for it to move at the point b in the direction 
 ab, and also at the same point b in the direction be. These 
 motions being diverse, they cannot be simultaneous. There- 
 fore, the moment of presence of the movable point at vertex 
 b, considered as moving in the direction ab, is different from 
 
 ' Hohere Mechanik, p. 354. 
 
139] KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 gi 
 
 the moment of presence of the movable point at the same 
 vertex b, considered as moving in the same direction be. 
 But between two moments there is time ; therefore, the/ 
 movable point is present at point b for some time, that is, \i 
 rests. Therefore it does not move continuously, which is 
 contrary to the assumption. The same demonstration is 
 valid for motion over any right line.s including an assignable 
 angle. Hence a body does not change its direction in con- 
 tinuous motion except by following a line no part of which 
 is straight, that is, a curve, as Leibnitz maintained. 
 
 5 . Time is not something objective and real, neither a sub- 
 stance, nor an accident, nor a relation. It is the subjective 
 condition necessary by the nature of the human mind for co- y 
 ordinating any sensible objects among themselves by a cer- 
 tain law; time is a pure intuition. Substances as well as 
 accidents we co-ordinate whether according to simultaneity 
 or succession by the concept only of time ; hence the notion 
 of time as the principle of form outranks the concepts of the 
 former. Any relations so far as occurring in sense-percep- 
 tion, whether simultaneous or successive, involve nothing but 
 the determination of positions in time, to wit, either in the 
 same point or in different points of the latter. 
 
 Those who assert the objective reality of time either con- 
 ceive of it as a continuous flow in what exists, without, how- 
 ever, any existing thing, as is done especially by the English 
 philosophers, an absurd fiction, or as something real ab- 
 stracted from the succession of inner states, as it has been 
 put by Leibnitz and his followers. The falsity of the latter 
 opinion, besides obviously exposing it to the vicious circle 
 in the definition of time, and, moreover, plainly neglecting 
 simultaneity, the most important consequence of time, dis- 
 turbs all sound reason, because it demands instead of the 
 determining of the laws of motion by the measure of time, 
 that time itself, as to its nature, be determined by what is 
 
62 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 [140 
 
 observed in motion or some series of inner changes, whereby 
 plainly all certitude of rules is abolished. That we can 
 estimate the quantity of time only in the concrete, namely, 
 either by motion or by a series of thoughts, arises from the 
 concept of time resting only on an inherent mental law, it 
 not being a connate intuition ; whence the act of the mind 
 co-ordinating the impressions is elicited only by the aid of 
 the senses. So far from its being possible to deduce and 
 explain the concept of time from some other source by force 
 of reason, it is presupposed by the very principle of contra- 
 diction, it underlies it by way of condition. For a and not-a 
 are not repugnant unless thought of the same thing simul- 
 taneously, that is, at the same time ; they may belong to the 
 same thing after each other, at different times. Hence the 
 possibility of changes is not thinkable except in time. Time 
 is not thinkable by changes, but reversely.' 
 
 6. But although time posited in itself and absolutely be an 
 imaginary thing, yet as appertaining to the immutable law of 
 sensible things as such, it is a perfectly true concept, and the 
 patent condition of intuitive representation throughout all the 
 infinite range of possible sense-objects. For since simultan- 
 eous things as such cannot be placed before the senses but 
 by the aid of time, and since changes are unthinkable except 
 by time, it is obvious that this concept contains the univer- 
 
 ' Simultaneous facts are not such for the reason that they do not succeed each 
 other. Removing succession, to be sure, a conjunction is withdrawn which ex- 
 isted by the time-series. Yet thence does not originate another true relation, the 
 conjunction of all things in the same moment. For simultaneous things are 
 joined in the same moment of time exactly as successive things are joined in dif- 
 ferent moments. Hence, though time is of but one dimension, still the ubiquity 
 of time, to speak with Newton, by which all things sensuously thinkable are 
 some time, adds to the quantity of actual thin^ another dimension, inasmuch as 
 they hang, so to speak, on the same point of time. For designating time by a 
 straight line produced infinitely, and the simultaneous things at any point of time 
 whatever by lines applied in succession, the surface thus generated will represent 
 the phenomenal world, both as to substance and accidents. 
 
I4l] ' KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF i^o 63 
 
 sal form of phenomena, and that, indeed, all events observ- 
 able in the world, all motions, all internal changes, agree 
 necessarily with the temporal axioms of cognition which we 
 have partly expounded, since only under these conditions can 
 they become sense-objects and be co-ordinated. It is, therefore, 
 absurd to excite reason against the primary postulates of 
 pure time, as, for example, continuity; etc., since they follow 
 from laws prior and superior to which nothing is found, and 
 since reason herself in the use of the principle of contradic- 
 tion cannot dispense with the support of this concept, so 
 primitive and original is it. 
 
 7. Time, then, is the absolutely ^xiA. formal principle of the 
 sensible world. For all sensible things of whatsoever de- 
 scription are unthinkable except as posited either simultan- 
 eously or one after another, and, indeed, as if involved and 
 mutually related by determinate position in the tract of 
 unique time, so that by this primary concept of everything 
 sensuous originates necessarily that formal whole which is 
 not a part of another, that is, the phenomenal World. 
 
 Paragraph 13 
 
 OF SPACE 
 
 A. The concept of space is not abstracted from external sen- 
 sations. For I am unable to conceive of anything posited 
 without me unless by representing it as in a place different 
 from that in which I am, and of things as mutually outside 
 of each other unless by locating them in different places in 
 space. Therefore the possibility of external perceptions, 
 as snch, presupposes and does not create the concept of space, 
 so that, although what is in space affects the senses, space 
 cannot itself be derived from the senses. 
 
 B. The concept of space is a singular representation com- 
 prehending all things in itself, not an abstract and common 
 notion containing them under itself. What are called several 
 
64 KANT'S IN A UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 [ 1 4 
 
 Spaces ar.e only parts of the same immense space mutuall 
 related by certain positions, nor cin you conceive of a cubi 
 foot except as being bounded in all directions by surround 
 ing space. 
 
 C. The concept of space, therefore, is a pure intuition, bein 
 a singular concept, not made up by sensations, but itself th 
 fundamental form of all external sensation. This pure intui 
 tion is in fact easily perceived in geometrical axioms, an 
 any mental construction of postulates or even problem; 
 That in space there are no more than three dimensions, the 
 between two points there is but one strainght line, that in 
 plane surface from a given point with a given right line 
 circle is describable, are not conclusions from some universe 
 notion of space, but only discernible in space as in the con 
 Crete. Which things in a given space lie toward one sid 
 and which are turned toward the other can by no acutenes 
 of reasoning be described discursively or reduced to Intel 
 lectual marks. There being in perfectly similar and equj 
 but incongruous solids, such as the right and the left hand 
 conceived of solely as to extent, or spherical triangles in op 
 posite hemispheres, a difference rendering impossible the co 
 incidence of their limits of extension, although for all tha 
 can be stated in marks intelHgible to the mind by speec 
 they are interchangeable, it is patent that only by pure in 
 tuition can the difference, namely, incongruity, be noticed 
 Geometry, therefore, uses principles not only undoubted an^ 
 discursive but falling under the mental view, and the obvioui 
 ness of its demonstrations — which means the clearness c 
 certain cognition in as far as assimilated to sensual know 
 ledge — is not only greatest, but the only one which is give 
 in the pure sciences, and the exemplar and medium of a 
 obviousness in the others. For, since geometry considers th 
 relations of space, the concept of which contains the ver 
 form of all sensual intuition, nothing that is perceived by th 
 
1 43 J KANT 'S INA UG URAL DISSS R TA TION OF 1770 g 5 
 
 external sense can be clear and perspicuous unless by 
 .means of that intuition which it is the business of geometry 
 to contemplate. Besides, this science does not demonstrate 
 its universal propositions by thinking the object through the 
 universal concept, as is done in intellectual disquisition, but 
 by submitting it to the eyes in a single intuition, as is done 
 in matters of sense.' 
 
 D. Space is not something objective and real, neither sub- 
 stance, nor accident, nor relation ; but subjective and ideal, 
 arising by fixed law from the nature of the mind like an out- 
 line for the mutual co-ordination of all external sensations 
 whatsoever. Those who defend the reality of space either 
 conceive of it as an absolute and immense receptacle of possi- 
 ble things, an opinion which, besides the English, pleases 
 most geometricians, or they contend for its being the rela- 
 tion of existing things itself, which clearly vanishes in the 
 removal of things and is thinkable only in actual things, as 
 besides Leibnitz, is maintained by most of our countrymen. 
 The first inane fiction of the reason, imagining true infinite 
 relation without any mutually related things, pertains to the 
 world of fable. But the adherents of the second opinion fall 
 into a much worse error. Whilst the former only cast an 
 obstacle in the way of some rational or noumenal concepts, 
 otherwise most recondite, such as questions concerning the 
 spiritual world, omnipresence, etc., the latter place them- 
 selves in flat opposition to the very phenomena, and to the 
 most faithful interpreter of all phenomena, to geometry. 
 
 ' As the necessity of conceiving space as a continuous quantity is easy to de- 
 monstrate, I pass it by. It is a consequence from this that the simple in space is 
 not a part, but a limit. A limit generally, is that in a continuous quantity which 
 contains the limited portion. Space not the limit of another is a solid. The 
 limit of a solid is ^ surface, of a surface the line, of a line the point; hence there 
 are three kinds of limits in space, as there are three dimensions. Two of these 
 limits, the surface and the line, are themselves spaces. The concept of limit 
 enters into no quantity besides time and space. 
 
66 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 [^144 
 
 For, not to enlarge upon the obvious circle in which they 
 become involved in defining space, they cast forth geometry, 
 thrown down from the pinnacle of certitude, into the number 
 of those sciences whose principles are empirical. If we have 
 obtained all the properties of space by experience from ex- 
 ternal relations only, geometrical axioms have only compar- 
 ative universality, such as is acquired by induction. They 
 have universality evident as far as observed, but neither 
 necessity, except as far as the laws of nature may be estab- 
 lished, nor precision, except what is arbitrarily made. There 
 is hope, as in empirical sciences, that a space may some time 
 be discovered endowed with other primary properties, per- 
 chance even a rectilinear figure of two lines. 
 
 E. Though the concept of space as an objective and real 
 thing or quality is imaginary, it is nevertheless in respect to 
 all sensible things not only perfectly true, it is the foundation 
 of truth in external sensibility. Things cannot appear to the 
 senses under any form but by means of a power of the soul 
 co-ordinating all sensations in accordance with a fixed law 
 implanted in its nature. Since, therefore, nothing at all can 
 be given the senses except conformably to the primary 
 axioms of space and their consequences which are taught by 
 geometry, though their principle be but subjective, yet the 
 soul will necessarily agree with them, since to this extent it 
 agrees with itself ; and the laws of sensuality will be the laws 
 of nature so far as it can be perceived by our senses. Nature, 
 therefore, is subject with absolute precision to all the pre- 
 cepts of geometry as to all the properties of space there de- 
 monstrated, this being the subjective condition, not hypo- 
 thetically but intuitively given, of every phenomenon in 
 which nature can ever be revealed to the senses. Surely, 
 unless the concept of space were originally given by the na- 
 ture of the mind, so as to cause him to toil in vain who 
 should labor to fashion mentally any relations other than 
 
145] J^^^T'S INA UG URAL DISSER TA TJON OF 1770 6/ 
 
 those prescribed by it, since in the fiction he would be com- 
 pelled to employ the aid of this very same concept, geometry 
 could not be used very safely in natural philosophy. For it 
 might be doubted whether this same notion drawn from ex- 
 perience would agree sufficiently with nature, the determina- 
 tions from which it was abstracted being, perchance, denied, 
 a suspicion of which has entered some minds already. Space,. 
 then, is the absolutely first formal principle of the sensible 
 world, not only because by its concept the objects of the 
 universe can be phenomena, but especially for the reason 
 that it is essentially but one, comprising all externally sen- 
 sible things whatsoever; and hence constitutes the principle 
 of the universe, that is, of that whole which cannot be the 
 part of another. 
 
 COROLLARY " 
 
 Here, then, are two principles of sensuous cognition, not, as 
 in intellectual knowledge, general concepts, but single and 
 nevertheless pure intuition, in which the parts, and especially 
 the simple parts, do not, as the laws of reason prescribe, con- 
 tain the possibility of the composite, but, according to the 
 pattern of sensuous intuition, the infinite contains the reason 
 of the part, and finally of its thinkable simple part or rather 
 limit. For unless infinite space as well as infinite time be 
 given, no definite space and time is assignable by limitation, 
 and a point as well as a moment is unthinkable by itself and 
 only conceived in a space and time already given as the 
 limits. All primitive properties of these concepts are then 
 beyond the purview of reason, and hence cannot intellect- 
 ually be explained in any way. Nevertheless, they are what 
 underlies the intellect when from intuitive primary data it de- 
 rives consequences according to logical laws with the great- 
 est possible certainty. One of these concepts properly con- 
 cerns the intuition of the object; the other the state, especially 
 
68 KANT'S IN A UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 [ 1 46 
 
 the representative state. Hence space is employed as the 
 type even of the concept of time itself, representing it by a 
 line, and its limits — moments — by points. Time, on the 
 other had, approaches more to a universal and rational con- 
 cept, comprising under its relations all things whatsoever, to 
 wit, space itself, and besides, those accidents which are not 
 comprehended in the relations of space, such as the thoughts 
 of the soul. Again, time, besides this, though it certainly 
 does not dictate the laws of reason, yet constitutes the princi- 
 pal conditions under favor of which the mind compares its 
 notions according to the laws of reason. Thus, I cannot judge 
 what is impossible except by predicating a and not-a of the 
 same subject at the same time. And especially, considering 
 experience, though the reference of cause to effect in external 
 objects were to lack the relations of space, still in all things, 
 external or internal, the mind could by the auxiliary relation 
 of time alone be informed which is the first and which latter 
 or caused. And even the quantity of space itself cannot be 
 rendered intelligible unless, referring it to measure as to a 
 unity, we set it forth in number, which itself is but multiplic- 
 ity distinctly cognized by numeration, that is, by the succes- 
 sive addition of one to one in a given time. 
 
 Lastly, the question will arise in any one as if spontan- 
 eously, whether either concept be connate or acquired. The 
 latter by what has been shown seems refuted already, but 
 the former, smoothing the way for lazy philosophy, declaring 
 vain by the citing of a first cause any further quest, is not to 
 be admitted thus rashly. But beyond doubt either concept is 
 acquired, not, it is true, abstracted from the sense of objects, 
 for sensation gives the matter not the form of human cog- 
 nition, but from the very action of the mind co-ordinating 
 its sense-percepts in accordance with perpetual laws, as 
 though an immutable type, and hence to be known intui- 
 tively. For sensations excite this act of the mind but do not 
 
147] KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 69 
 
 influence intuition, neither is there anything connate here 
 except the law of the soul in accordance with which it con- 
 joins in a certain way its sensations derived from the presr 
 ence of an object. 
 
 SECTION IV 
 
 ON THE PRINCIPLE OF THE FORM OF THE INTELLIGIBLE 
 
 WORLD 
 
 Paragraph 16 
 
 Those who deem space and time to be something real and 
 the absolute bond, so to speak, of all possible substances, 
 in space, hold nothing else to be required in order to con- 
 ceive how an original relation can belong to several existing 
 things as the primitive condition of possible influence and 
 the principle of the essential form of the universe. For since 
 whatever exists is, according to their opinion, necessarily 
 somewhere, it seems to them quite superfluous to inquire 
 why things are present to one another in a certain manner, 
 since this is of itself determined by the universality of allr 
 comprehending space. But this concept, besides relating as 
 has been shown rather to the sensuous laws of the subject 
 than to the conditions of the objects themselves, even grant- 
 ing it the greatest reality, still denotes nothing but the 
 intuitively given possibility of universal co-ordination, leav- 
 ing undealt with the question solvable only by the intellect : 
 In what principle does this very relation of all substances 
 rest, which intuitively regarded is called space f The question 
 of the principle of the form of the intelligible world turns, 
 therefore, upon making apparent in what manner it is pos- 
 sible for several substances to be in mutual commerce, and for 
 this reason to pertain to the same whole, which is called 
 
70 KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSER TA TJON OF 1770 [ 1 48 
 
 world. We do not here consider the world, let it be under- 
 stood, as to matter, that is, as to the nature of the sub- 
 stances of which it consists, whether they be material or 
 immaterial, but as to form, that is to say, how among sev- 
 eral things taken separately a connection, and among them 
 all, totality can have place. 
 
 Paragraph I'j 
 
 Several substances being given, the principle of their pos- 
 sible intercommunication is not apparent from their existence 
 solely, but something else is required besides from which 
 their mutual relations may be understood. For on account 
 of mere existence they are not necessarily related to any- 
 thing, unless it be to their cause; but the relation of an 
 efifect to the cause is not intercommunication, but depend- 
 ence. Therefore, if any commerce intervenes among them, 
 there is need of an exactly determining specific reason. 
 
 The sham cause in physical influence consists in rashly as- 
 suming that the commerce of substance and transitive forces 
 is sufficiently knowable from their mere existence. Hence 
 it is not so much a system as rather the neglect of all philo- 
 sophical system as a superfluity in the argument. Freeing 
 the concept from this defect, we shall have a species of com- 
 merce alone deserving to be called real, and from which the 
 whole constituting the world merits being called real, and 
 not ideal or imaginary. 
 
 Paragraph 18 
 
 A whole from, necessary substances is impossible. For, 
 since the existence of each stands for itself without depend- 
 ence on any other, a dependence which in necessary sub- 
 stances clearly cannot befall, it is plain that not only does 
 the intercommunication of substances (that is, the reciprocal 
 dependence of their states) not follow from their existence, 
 but as necessary substances cannot belong to them at all. 
 
I49j KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 yi 
 
 Paragraph ig 
 
 The whole, therefore, of substances is a whole of contingent 
 things, and the world consists essentially of only contingent 
 things. Besides, no necessary substance is in connection 
 with the world except as a cause with the effect, and, there- 
 fore, not as a part with its complements making up a whole, 
 since the bond connecting parts is mutual dependence, which 
 in a necessary being cannot occur. The cause, therefore, of 
 the world is an extramundane being, and so is not the soul 
 of the world, nor is its presence in the world local, but 
 virtual. 
 
 Paragraph 20 
 
 The mundane substances are beings from another being ; not 
 from several, but all from one. For, suppose them to be caused 
 by several necessary beings. In intercommunication there 
 are not effects from causes alien to all mutual relation. 
 Hence, the unity in the conjunction of the substances of the 
 universe is the consequence of the dependence of all on one. 
 Therefore, the form of the universe witnesses the cause of 
 matter, and only the sole cause of all things is the cause of 
 the universe, nor is there an architect of the world not at the 
 same time its creator. 
 
 Paragraph 21 
 
 If there were several primary and necessary causes to- 
 gether with their effects, their works would be worlds, not a 
 world, since they would in no wise be connected into one 
 whole. And vice versa, if there be several actual worlds 
 without one another, several primary and necessary causes 
 are given, so, however, as to give intercommunication neither 
 to one world with another, nor to the cause of one with the 
 world caused by another. 
 
 Several actual worlds without one another are not, there- 
 
7 2 KANT'S IN A UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 [150 
 
 fore, impossible by the very concept, as Wolf hastily concluded 
 from the notion of a complex or multiplicity which he 
 deemed sufficient to a whole, as such, but only on condition 
 that there exist but one necessary cause of all things. If sev- 
 eral are admitted, several worlds without one another will be 
 possible in the strictest metaphysical sense. 
 
 Paragraph 22 
 If, as we validly conclude from a given world to a single 
 cause of all its parts, we may similarly argue reversely from 
 the given cause common to all to their interconnection, and 
 hence to the form of the world — though I confess this con- 
 clusion does not seem as plain to me — then the primary 
 connection of substances will not be contingent but by the sus- 
 tentation of all by the common principle, necessary, and hence 
 the harrtiony proceeding from their very subsistence founded 
 in a common cause would proceed according to the usual 
 rules. Such a harmony I term established generally ; as that 
 which does not take place except as far as any individual 
 states of a substance are adapted to the condition of another 
 is harmony established particularly; the communion by the 
 former being real and physical, by the latter ideal and sym- 
 pathetic. All communion, then, of the substance of the uni- 
 verse is eternally established by the common cause of all, and 
 either established generally by physical influence — as 
 amended; see paragraph 17 — or adapted particularly to their 
 states ; and the latter either rests originally in the primary 
 constitution of every substance or is impressed on the occa- 
 sion of any change whatever ; the first being called pre-estab- 
 lished harmony, the latter occasionalism. If, then, on account 
 of the sustentation of all substances by one, the conjunction 
 of all constituting them a unit be necessary, the universal 
 commerce of substances will be hy physical influence, and the 
 world a real whole; if not, the commerce will be sympa- 
 
^jl] KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF tyjo 73 
 
 thetic, that is a harmony without true commerce, and the 
 world only an ideal whole. To me the former, though not 
 demonstrated, appears abundantly proved by other reasons. 
 
 SCHOLIUM 
 
 If it were right to overstep a little the limits of apodictic 
 certainty befitting metaphysics, it would seem worth while to 
 trace out some things pertaining not merely to the laws but 
 even to the causes of sensuous intuition, which are only intel- 
 lectually knowable. Of course the human mind is not af- 
 fected by external things, and the world does not lie open to 
 its insight infinitely, except as far as itself together with all 
 other things is sustained by the same infinite power of one. 
 Hence it does not perceive external things but by the pres- 
 ence of the same common sustaining cause ; and hence space, 
 which is the universal and necessary condition of the joint 
 presence of everything known sensuously, may be called the 
 phenomenal omnipresence, for the cause of the universe is not 
 present to all things and everything, as being in their places, 
 but their places, that is the relations of the substances, are pos- 
 sible, because it is intimately present to all. Furthermore, 
 since the possibility of the changes and successions of all things 
 whose principle as far as sensuously known resides in the con- 
 cept of time, supposes the continuous existence of the subject 
 whose opposite states succeed ; that whose states are in flux, 
 lasting not, however, unless sustained by another ; the con- 
 cept of time as one infinite and immutable in which all things 
 are and last, is the phenomenal eternity of the general cause} 
 But it seems more cautious to hug the shore of the cogni- 
 tions granted to us by the mediocrity of our intellect than to 
 
 'The moments of time do not appear to follow one another, since if they did 
 another time would have to be premised for the succession of moments; but by 
 sensuous intuition the actual things appear to descend, as it were, through a con- 
 tinuous series of moments. 
 
74 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 [152 
 
 be carried out upon the high seas of such mystic investiga- 
 tions, Hke Malebranche, whose opinion that we see all things 
 in God is pretty nearly what has here been expounded. 
 
 SECTION V 
 
 ON THE METHOD RESPECTING THE SENSUOUS AND THE 
 INTELLECTUAL IN METAPHYSICS 
 
 Paragraph 2^ 
 
 In all sciences whose principles are given intuitively, 
 whether by sensual intuition, that is, experience, or by an 
 intuition sensuous, to be sure, but pure — the concepts of 
 space, time, and number — that is to say, in the natural and 
 in the mathematical sciences, use gives method, and by trying 
 and finding after the science has been carried to some degree 
 of copiousness and consonancy it appears by what method 
 and in what direction we must proceed in order to finish and 
 to purify it by removing the defects of error as well as of 
 confused thoughts ; exactly as grammar after the more copi- 
 ous use of speech, and style after the appearance of choice 
 examples in poetry and oratory,, furnished vantage-ground 
 to rules and to discipline. But the use of the intellect in the 
 sciences whose primitive concepts as well as axioms are 
 given by sensuous intuition is only logical, that is, by it we 
 only subordinate cognitions to one another according to 
 their relative universality conformably to the principle of 
 contradiction, phenomena to more general phenomena, and 
 consequences of pure intuition to intuitive axioms. But in 
 pure philosophy, such as metaphysics, in which the use of 
 the intellect in respect to principles is real, that is to say, 
 where the primary concept of things and relations and the 
 very axioms are given originally by the pure intellect itself, 
 
153] KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 7 5 
 
 and not being intuitions do not enjoy immunity from error, 
 the method precedes the whole science, and whatever is at- 
 tempted before its precepts are thoroughly discussed and 
 firmly established is looked upon as rashly conceived and to 
 be rejected among vain instances of mental playfulness. 
 For, since here the right use of the reason constitutes the 
 very principles and the objects as well, what axioms are to 
 be thought of concerning them become primarily known 
 solely by its own nature, the exposition of the laws of pure 
 reason is the very origin of the science, and their distinction 
 from spurious laws the criterion of truth. The method of 
 the science not being practiced much nowadays, except what 
 logic prescribes to all sciences generally, that fitted for the 
 peculiar nature of metaphysics being simply ignored, it is no 
 wonder that those who everlastingly turn the Sisyphean 
 stone of this inquiry do not seem so far to have made much 
 progress. Though here I neither can nor will expatiate upon 
 so important and extensive a subject, I shall briefly shadow 
 forth what constitutes no despicable part of this method, 
 namely, the infection between settsuous and intellectual cogni- 
 tion, not only as creeping in on those incautious in the ap- 
 pHcation of principles, but even producing spurious princi- 
 ples under the appearance of axioms. 
 
 Paragraph 24. 
 
 In substance the whole method of metaphysics as to the 
 sensuous and the intellectual amounts to this precept; to 
 take care not to allow the principles at home in sensuous cog- 
 nition to outstray their limits and affect the intellectual con- 
 cepts. For, since the predicate in any judgment enounced 
 intellectually is a condition in the absence of which the sub- 
 ject is asserted to be unthinkable, the predicate hence being 
 the principle of cognition, it will, if a sensuous concept, be 
 only the condition of a possible sensuous cognition — and 
 
•j(i KANT'S INA UGURAL DISSERTA TION OF 1770 [ i 54 
 
 hence will square well enough with the subject of a judgment 
 whose concept is also sensuous. But if it be applied to an 
 intellectual concept, the judgment will be valid only accord- 
 ing to subjective laws, and hence must not be affirmed ob- 
 jectively and predicated of the intellectual notion itself, but 
 only as a condition in the absence of which the sensuous cog- 
 nition of the given concept does not take place} 
 
 Now, since the tricks of the intellect by the subordination 
 of sensuous concepts as though intellectual marks may be 
 called, analogously to the accepted meaning, a fallacy of 
 subreption, the exchanging of intellectual and sensual con- 
 cepts will be a metaphysical fallacy of subreption, the intel- 
 lectualized phenomenon, if the barbarous expression be per- 
 missible, and hence I call such a hybrid axiom as palms off 
 the sensuous as necessarily adhering to the intellectual con- 
 cept, a surreptitious axiom. From these spurious axioms 
 have gone forth, and are rife throughout metaphysics, prin- 
 ciples deceiving the intellect. In order that we may have, 
 however, a readily and clearly knowable citerion of those 
 judgments, a touchstone, so to speak, by which to distinguish 
 them from genuine judgments, and at the same time if, 
 perhaps, they seem to cling tenaciously to the intellect, an 
 
 ' The use of this criterion is fruitful and easy in distinguishing principles which 
 enunciate laws of sensuous cognition only from those prescribing besides some- 
 thing concerning the objects themselves. If the predicate be an intellectual con- 
 cept, its reference to the subject of the judgment, though this subject be thought 
 of as an object of sense, always denotes a mark belonging to the object itself. 
 If the predicate be a sensuous concept, then, since the laws of sensuous cognition 
 are not conditions of the possibihty of things themselves, it is not valid as to the 
 subject of the judgment conceived intellectually, and hence it cannot be enounced 
 objectively. Thus in the common axiom whatever exists is somewhere, as the 
 predicate contains conditions of sensuous knowledge it cannot be enounced as to 
 the subject of the judgment, namely, anything existing, generally; hence this 
 formula as an objective rule is false. But converting the proposition, so as to 
 make the predicate an intellectual concept, it becomes perfectly true ; thus : 
 whatever is somewhere, exists. 
 
155] J^ ANT'S INA UG VRAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 77 
 
 assaying art by which we can justly estimate how much be- 
 longs to the sensuous and how much to the intellectual 
 sphere, I Qhink it necessary to go into the question more , 
 deeply. ' 
 
 Paragraph 2^ 
 
 Here, then, is the principle of reduction fof any spurious 
 axiom: If concerning any intellectual concept something per- 
 taining to time and space relations be predicted generally, it is 
 not to be enounced objectively, but denotes only the condition 
 without which the given concept is not knowable sensuously. 
 That such an axiom is spurious, and, if not false, at least a 
 rash and question-begging assertion, appears thus : the sub- 
 ject of the judgment being intellectually conceived pertains 
 to the object, whilst the predicate, since it contains the 
 determinations of space and time, pertains only to the con- 
 ditions of human sensuous cognition, which, not adhering of 
 necessity to any cognition whatsoever of the object, cannot 
 be enounced concerning the given intellectual concept uni- 
 versally. The intellect's being so readily subject to this 
 fallacy of subreption comes of its being deceived under the 
 plea of another and perfectly true rule. For we rightly sup- 
 pose that that which can be cognized by no intuition whatever 
 is utterly tmthinkable and hence impossible. But since we 
 cannot attain by any mental striving, even fictitiously, to any 
 other intuition but that according to the form of space and 
 time, it happens that we deem all intuition whatever impos- 
 sible which is not bound by these laws, passing by the pure 
 intellectual intuition exempt from the laws of the senses, such 
 as the divine, by Plato called the Idea, and hence subject all 
 possible given things to the sensual axioms of space and 
 time. 
 
 Paragraph 26 
 
 All sleights of substitution of sensuous cognition under 
 
78 KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 [156 
 
 guise of intellectual concepts, from which spurious axioms 
 originate, can be reduced to three species, whose general 
 formulae are the following : 
 
 1. The sensual condition under which alone the intuition 
 of an^'object is poss,ible, is the condition of its possibility. 
 
 2. The sensual condition under which alone data can be 
 compared in order to form the intellectual concept of the object, 
 is the condition of the very possibility of the object. 
 
 3. The sensual condition under which alone the subsump- 
 tion of an object under a given intellectual concept is possible, 
 is the condition of the possibility of the object. 
 
 Paragraph sy 
 
 A spurious axiom of the frst class is : Whatever is, is 
 somewlicre and sometime} Now by this spurious principle 
 all beings, even though they be intellectually cognized, are 
 restricted in existence by the conditions of space and time. 
 Hence people discuss all sorts of inane questions, such as 
 concerning the places of immaterial substances — of which, 
 for that very reason, there is no sensuous intuition, nor, under 
 that form, any representation — in the corporeal universe, or 
 the seat of the soul; and as they improperly mix sensual 
 things with intellectual concepts, like square figures with 
 round, it oftens happens that of the disputants one appears 
 as milking a he-goat, and the other as holding the sieve 
 under. The presence of immaterial substances in the cor- 
 
 ' Space and time are conceived as comprehending in them all things in any way 
 offered to the senses. Hence, according to the laws of the human mind, the in- 
 tuition of nothing is given except as contained in space and time. To this preju- 
 dice another may be compared which is not properly a spurious axiom but a play 
 of the fancy, and which may be set forth in the general formula : In whatever 
 exists are space and time, that is to say, every substance is extended and continu- 
 ously changed. But though people of dense conception are bound firmly by this 
 law of imagination, even they see readily that it pertains only to the efforts of 
 fancy, shadowing forth to itself the appearance of things, not to the conditions of 
 existence. 
 
I 5 7 J KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSERTA TION OF 1770 yg 
 
 poreal world is virtual, not local, though thus improperly 
 talked about. Space does not contain the conditions of 
 possible mutual activities, except 'those of matter. What 
 may constitute the external relations of forces in immaterial 
 substances, as well among themselves as toward bodies, al- 
 tog^her escapes the human intellect, as was acutely noted, 
 for instance, in a letter to a German prince by the clear- 
 sighted Euler, otherwise a great investigator and judge of 
 phenomena. But when people have arrived at the concept 
 of a highest and extra-mundane being, they are fooled by 
 these shadows flitting before the intellect to a degree beyond 
 the force of language to express. The presence of God they 
 figure to themselves as a local one, involving God in the 
 world as if also comprised in infinite space, compensating 
 Him for this limitation by a locality, so to speak, eminently 
 conceived, that is, infinite. But it is absolutely impossible 
 to be at the same time in several places, since different places 
 are mutually without each other, and hence what is in sev- 
 eral places is outside of itself, which implies being present to 
 itself externally. But as to time, having not only exempted 
 it from the laws of sensual knowledge, but transferred it be- 
 yond the limits of the world to the extra-mundane Being 
 Himself as a condition of His existence, they involve them- 
 selves in an inextricable labyrinth. Hence they cudgel their 
 brains with absurd questions, such as, for instance, why God 
 did not make the world many centuries earlier. They per- 
 suade themselves that it is easy to conceive, to be sure, how 
 God may discern what is present, that is, what is actual in 
 the time in which he is, but how He may foresee what is future, 
 that is, what is actual in the time in which He is not yet, they 
 deem an intellectual difficulty; as if the existence of the 
 Necessary Being descended through all the moments of an 
 imaginary time, and, having already exhausted a part of His 
 duration, saw before Him the eternity He was yet to live 
 
8o KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 [158 
 
 simultaneously with the present events of the world. All 
 these difficulties upon proper insight into the notion of time 
 vanish like smoke. 
 
 Paragraph 28 
 
 The prejudices of the second species, since they impose 
 upon the intellect by the sensual conditions restricting the 
 mind if it wishes in certain cases to attain to what is intel- 
 lectual, lurk more deeply. One of them is that which 
 affects knowledge of quantity, the other that affecting know- 
 ledge of qualities generally. The former is : every actual 
 multiplicity can be given numerically, and hence, every infinite 
 quantity ; the latter, whatever is impossible contradicts itself. 
 In either of them the concept of time, it is true, does not 
 enter into the very notion of the predicate, nor is it attributed 
 as a qualification to the subject. But yet it serves as a 
 means for forming an idea of the predicate, and thus, being 
 a condition, affects the intellectual concept of the subject to 
 the extent that the latter is only attained by its aid. 
 
 As to the first, as every quantity and any series whatever 
 are distinctly known only by successive co-ordination, the 
 intellectual concept of amount and multiplicity arises only 
 by the aid of this concept of time, and never attains to com- 
 pleteness unless the synthesis can be gone through with in 
 finite time. It is hence that the infinite series of co-ordinate 
 things cannot be comprehended distinctly according to the 
 limits of our intellect ; it hence by the fallacy of subreption 
 seems impossible. According to the laws of pure intellect 
 any series of effects has its principle, that is, there is not 
 given in a series of effects a regress without a hmit ; whilst 
 according to sensual laws any series of co-ordinate things 
 has its assignable beginning. These propositions, the latter 
 of which involves the mensurability of the series, the former 
 the dependence of the whole, are taken hastily for identical. 
 
159] KANT'S IN A UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 g j 
 
 In the same way, to the argument of the intellect, proving 
 that a substantial composite being given so are the elements 
 of composition, that is, the simple things, there is adjoined a 
 supposititious one suborned from sensual knowledge, namely, 
 that in such a composite there is not given an infinite regress 
 in the composition of the parts, that is to say, that in any 
 composite there is given a definite number of parts, a sense 
 certainly not germane to the former, and hence substituted 
 rashly for it. For that the quantity of the world is limited, 
 not the maximum, that it owns a principle, that bodies con- 
 sist of simple parts, can certainly be cognized rationally. 
 But that the universe as to its mass is mathematically finite, 
 that its age as elapsed can be given by measure, that the 
 number of simple parts constituting any body whatever is a 
 definite number, are propositions openly proclaiming their 
 origin from the nature of sensual knowledge ; however true 
 they may be held to be, they bear the undoubted stigma of 
 their origin. 
 
 As for the latter spurious axiom, it originates from a rash 
 conversion of the principle of contradiction. For to this 
 primitive judgment the concept of time adheres to the extent 
 that contradictorily opposed data being given at the same 
 time in the same thing, the impossibihty is plain, which is 
 enounced thus : whatever simultaneously is and is not, is im- 
 possible. Here, as the intellect predicates something in a case 
 given according to, sensual laws, the judgment is perfectly 
 true and obvious. On the contrary, converting this axiom, 
 saying : whatever is impossible is and is not at the same time, 
 or involves a contradiction, we predicate through sensual 
 knowledge something concerning the object of reason gen- 
 erally, thus subjecting the intellectual conception of the pos- 
 sible and the impossible to the conditions of sensual knowl- 
 edge, namely, to the relations of time ; which certainly is 
 true enough of the laws restricting and limiting the human 
 
82 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 [160 
 
 intellect, but cannot be conceded objectively and generally 
 by any means. Of course, our m'l&Vi&ct perceives no impossi- 
 bility except where it can note the simultaneous enunciation 
 of opposites concerning the same thing, that is, only where 
 contradiction occurs. Wherever, therefore, this contradic- 
 tion does not occur, there is no room for the judgment of 
 impossibility by the human intellect. But that on this ac- 
 count it should be open to no intellect whatever, and hence 
 that what does not involve contradiction is therefore possible^ 
 is concluded rashly by taking the subjective conditions of 
 judgment for objective ones. It is for this reason that a host 
 of fictitious forces, gotten up ad libitum, bursts, in the ab- 
 sence of self-contradiction, from any constructive, or, if you 
 prefer, from every chimerical mind. For as a force is noth- 
 ing but a relation of a substance a to something else b, an 
 accident, as of a reason to the consequence, the possibility 
 of any force does not rest in the identity of the cause and the 
 effect, or the substance and the accident, and hence even the 
 impossibility of forces made up falsely does not depend solely 
 on contradiction. Therefore it is not permissible to assume 
 as possible any original force unless the force be given by ex- 
 perience. Neither can the possibility be conceived a priori 
 by any perspicacity of the intellect. 
 
 Paragraph 2^ 
 The spurious axioms of the third kind from conditions 
 proper to the subject whence they are transferred rashly to 
 the object are plentiful, not, as in those of the Second Class, 
 because the only way to the intellectual concept lies through 
 the sensuous data, but because only by aid of the latter can 
 the concept be applied to that which is given by experience, 
 that is, can we know whether something is contained under 
 a certain intellectual concept or not. To this class belongs 
 the threadbare one of the schools : whatever exists con- 
 tingently ddes at some time not exist. This spurious principle 
 
l6l J KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 83 
 
 springs from the poverty of the intellect, having insight fre- 
 quently into the nominal, rarely into the real, marks of con- 
 tingency or necessity. Hence, whether the opposite of any 
 substance be possible, an insight hardly obtained from a 
 priori marks, is not otherwise known than by its being evi- 
 dent that at some time that substance was not; and changes 
 rather witness contingency than contingency mutability, so 
 that were nothing fleeting and transitory to occur in the 
 world, a notion of contingence would hardly be possible in 
 us. Therefore, though the direct proposition is perfectly 
 true : whatever at some time was not is contingent, its converse 
 indicates nothing but the conditions under which we can 
 alone distinguish whether something exists necessarily or 
 contingently. Hence if enunciated as a subjective law, which 
 indeed it is, it should be enounced thus : Sufficient marks of 
 contingency of that of which it is not evident that at some time 
 it was not, are not, by common intelligence, given. This, how- 
 ever, tacitly deviates into an objective condition, as though 
 in its absence there were no room for contingence; which 
 being done, a counterfeit and erroneous axiom arises. For 
 this world though existing contingently is sempiternal, that 
 is, simultaneous with all time. It is a rash assertion that 
 there was a time when it did not exist. 
 
 Paragraph jo 
 To these spurious principles must be added some others 
 of great afiSnity with them, not imparting to the given in- 
 tellectual concept any blemish of sensuous cognition, but 
 deceiving the intellect so as to take them for arguments 
 drawn from the object, though they are commended to us 
 only by the peculiar nature of the intellect for the con- 
 venience of its free and ample use. Therefore, these as well 
 as those enumerated above, rest in subjective reasons, 
 although not in the laws of sensuous, but in those of in- 
 tellectual cognition itself, namely, in the conditions under 
 
84 KANT'S IN A UG URAL DISSER 7A TION OF 1770 [ 1 62 
 
 which it appears easy and quick to the mind to make use of 
 its insight. I shall beg leave to throw in here, by way of 
 conclusion, some mention of these principles, not as yet, as 
 far as I know, set forth distinctly. I call, then, principles 
 of convenience rules of judging to which we freely submit, 
 and to which we adhere as if they were axioms, for the only 
 reason that, were we to depart from them, scarcely any judg- 
 ment concerning a given object would be permissible to our 
 intellect. In this list belong the following: First, that by 
 which we assume that everything in the universe is done ac- 
 cording to the order of nature, which principle by Epicurus 
 was proclaimed without any restriction, and by all other 
 philosophers unanimously with extremely rare exceptions, 
 not to be admitted but from supreme necessity. Still we 
 thus affirm, not on account of possessing so ample a knowl- 
 edge of the events of the world according to the common 
 laws of nature, or because the impossibility or smaller hypo- 
 thetical possiblity of supernatural things is plain to us, but 
 because departing from the order of nature there would be 
 no use for the intellect, the rash citation of the supernatural 
 being the couch of lazy understandings. For the same reason 
 we take care to shut out from the exposition of phenomena 
 comparative miracles, namely, the influence of spirits, since, 
 as we do not know their nature, the intellect, to its great 
 detriment, would be turned aside from the light of experience, 
 by which alone it is able to provide for itself laws of judging, 
 into the night of species and causes unknown to us. The 
 second is the partiality for unity proper to the philosophical 
 mind, whence this wide-spread canon has flown forth : prin- 
 ciples are not to be multiplied beyond supreme necessity, to 
 which we give in our adhesion, not because we have insight 
 into causal unity in the world either by reason or experience, 
 but as seeking it by an impulse of the intellect which seems 
 to itself to have by thus much advanced in the explication of 
 
1 63 ] KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 8 5 
 
 phenomena, by as much as it is granted to it to descend 
 from the same principle to a greater number of consequence^ 
 The third of this kind of principles is : matter neither origin- 
 ates nor perishes; all the changes in the world concern form 
 only ; a postulate which on the recommendation of common 
 sense has spread through all philosophical schools, not be- 
 cause it is to be taken as having been found so, or as having 
 been demonstrated by arguments a priori, but because if we 
 were to admit that matter itself is fleeting and transitory, 
 nothing at all that is stable and lasting would be left any 
 longer to serve for the explication of phenomena according 
 to universal and perpetual laws, and hence nothing at all 
 would be left for the exercise of the intellect. 
 
 This method, especially in respect to the distinction be- 
 tween sensual and intellectual knowledge, which, when re- 
 duced by more careful investigation to exactness, will occupy 
 the position of a propaedeutical science, will certainly be of 
 unlimited benefit to all intending to penetrate into the very 
 recesses of metaphysics. 
 
 Note. — hs in this last section the tracing out of the method occupies all the 
 space at disposal, and the rules prescribing the true form of arguing concerning 
 sensuous things shine by their own light and do not borrow it from the illustra- 
 tive examples, I have thrown in but a cursory mention of the latter. For this 
 reason it is not strange if some things should seem to have been asserted with 
 more audacity than truth, they certainly calling, when a broader treatment shall be 
 possible, for greater force of arguments. Thus, what is alleged in paragraph 27 
 on the locality of immaterial substances lacks an explication which, if the reader 
 please, may be found in Euler in the place cited, Vol. II, pp. 49, 52. For the 
 soul is not in communion with the tody as being detained in a certain place in 
 the latter, but a determined place in the universe is attributed to it, for the reason 
 that it is in mutual commerce with some body, which commerce being dissolved 
 all its position in space is removed. Its locality, therefore, is derivative and con- 
 tingently applied to it, not primitive and a necessary condition of its existence, 
 because whatever things cannot by themselves be objects of external senses such 
 as man's, that is, immaterial substances, are exempt altogether from the univer- 
 sal condition of externally sensible things, namely, space. Hence absolute and 
 immediate locality may be denied to the soul, while yet hypothetical and mediate 
 locality may be attributed to it. 
 
PART III 
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF THE DISSERTATION 
 
 Comparatively little need be added to set forth the rela- 
 tion of the Dissertation to the Critical System. We have de- 
 signedly anticipated much in order to indicate from the first 
 the point of view for contemplating the Dissertation as a 
 turning-point in the development of the philosophy of Kant. 
 
 /. Comments of Lambert and Mendelssohn 
 Lambert, whose Kosmologische Brief e unintentionally re- 
 produced Kant's opinion on the origin of the starry heavens 
 half a dozen years after its appearance, agreed with Kant 
 as to the methodical need in metaphysics of invention and 
 renovation. The universality which is to prevail in it, he 
 wrote, aims in a certain sense for omniscience, and to that 
 extent beyond the limits of human cognition. It seems, to 
 me it has always been an unrecognized but chief mistake of 
 philosophers to wish to force things. Rather than leave 
 aught unexpounded, they have satisfied themselves with 
 hypotheses, which in fact have • delayed the discovery of 
 truth.' 
 
 The agreement between him and Kant was even more 
 definite. Kant for several years had turned his philosophi- 
 cal considerations in every conceivable direction, and after 
 being upset many times, and each time seeking the sources 
 of error or insight in the method of procedure, deemed him- 
 
 ivm, 657. 
 86 [164 
 
165] KANT 'S IN A UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF /770 87 
 
 self sure finally of the method to be observed in order to 
 escape that mirage of knowledge which causes us to believe 
 every moment that we have reached a decision, only to com- 
 pel us as often to retrace our steps ; whence originates also 
 the ruinous dissension of those imagining themselves philoso- 
 phers, there being no common standard to give consonancy 
 to their efforts.' In giving this bit of autobiography, Kant 
 plainly referred to the Inquiries into the Evidentness of the 
 Principles of Natural Theology and Morals. Lambert re- 
 plies : The method which you, sir, indicate in your letter, is 
 beyond contradiction the only one that can be used safely 
 and with good progress.'' The attitude of both men towards 
 the rationalistic philosophy was the question : Whether and 
 to what extent the knowledge of the form of that which we 
 know leads to the knowledge of the matter of that which we 
 know, and both hit upon comparing philosophical with math- 
 ematical cognitions. The only efifect of this correspondence 
 shown in segregate form in the Critique is referred to by 
 Kant in a letter to Bernouilli:' "The excellent man offered 
 objections to the concepts of time and space. I answered 
 them in the Critique of Pure Reason." The objection ap- 
 pears in a letter of Lambert's of December, 1770, the answer 
 in the Elementarlehre I Theil, II Abschnitt, paragraph 7, 
 under the appropriate heading of Erlauterung, being in fact 
 a mere elucidation. 
 
 Mendelssohn's objection to Kant's averment: I do not 
 understand the signification of the word after, unless by the 
 antecedent conception of time,* that this difficulty seems to 
 prove the poverty of language rather than an incorrectness 
 of concepts, made even less impression of a separately in- 
 dicable nature on Kant. That it was one of many influences 
 
 'VIII, 655. 2 VIII, 657. 
 
 s VIII, 650. * II, 406. 
 
8 8 KANT 'S IN A UC URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 [ j gg 
 
 leading to the Kantian exclusion of empirical psychology 
 from metaphysics' is very probable. 
 
 Mendelssohn's view of the evolutional relation of the Dis- 
 sertation to the Critique is precisely that which we have sug- 
 gested. Writing to Kant he says : Obviously this pamphlet 
 is the fruit of long meditation, and must be regarded as a 
 portion of a whole system of doctrine peculiar to the author, 
 and of which for the present he is willing to show but few 
 samples. The apparent obscurity itself which has remained 
 in some places betrays to a practiced reader a relation to a 
 whole not yet presented.^ 
 
 2. The Relation of the Dissertation to Transcendental 
 Dialectic 
 
 This relation to a whole is to be found in the Critique, the 
 Dissertation passing almost certainly through the inter- 
 mediate stage of a work under the title of The Boundaries of 
 Sensuousness and Reason,' which was never published. 
 
 As the Dissertation was transferred almost in bulk, one has 
 one's choice of two methods of treatment. One may be very 
 elaborate or one may be very brief. The latter alternative, 
 of necessity, we adopt. 
 
 The relative importance of parts of the Dissertation is 
 stated by the author himself : The First and Fourth sections 
 may be passed over as unimportant, but the Second, Third 
 and Fifth, although owing to indisposition I have not gotten 
 them up at all satisfactorily to myself, seem to me to con- 
 tain a matter well worth a more careful and extensive elabo- 
 ration. The most general propositions regarding sensibility 
 play falsely a great role in metaphysics, though in the latter 
 the only question is of concepts and principles of pure reason.* 
 
 1 Methodenlehre, III, Hptst. 2 ym, 676. 
 
 3 VIII, 686. ' VIII, 663. 
 
167] KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF lyyo gg 
 
 That is to say, Kant emphasizes the principles of the form of 
 the sensible world/ and their discrimination from noumena' 
 in the method of metaphysics.^ We accordingly find that, 
 roughly speaking, Section III enters into the Critique as the 
 Transcendental Aesthetics, while Sections II and V form 
 the ground -stock of Transcendental Analytics, the unem- 
 phasized First and Fourth sections containing the scattered 
 seeds of the Transcendental Dialectics. 
 
 The number of these germs is apt to be under-estimated. 
 We shall intimate a few. 
 
 In the teeth of Mendelssohn's objection the implication of 
 time in the Principle of Contradiction is retained in the defi- 
 nition of change and the accidental. In the pure sense of 
 the Categories we call contingent that of which the contra- 
 dictory opposite is possible. Of what undergoes change we 
 may say that the opposite of its state is real — and therefore 
 possible also — at another time.* 
 
 Kant continues to hold that we can discover no sign of 
 contingency except something happening', that is, the exist- 
 ence preceded by the non-existence of the object.^ 
 
 The proposition that the world must have a beginning in 
 time, is still classified as a transcendental illusion.^ 
 
 The remainder turns up again that there exist in our 
 reason considered subjectively as a faculty of human knowl- 
 edge principles and maxims of its use, which have the ap- 
 pearance of objective principles and lead us to mistake the 
 subjective necessity of a certain connection of our concepts 
 in favor of the understanding for an objective necessity in- 
 herent in the determination of things themselves.' 
 
 Occasionally we have a curious shifting in the terminology, 
 
 iSectioIII. ^Section, ^SectioV. * III, 326. 
 
 6111,521. « III, 246. 'Ibid. 
 
90 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 [168 
 
 especially in the Critical re-adjustment of the Intelligible 
 World of the Dissertation. 
 
 I call all transcendental ideas as to the absolute totality in 
 the synthesis of phenomena cosmical concepts, partly because 
 of the unconditioned totality upon which rests the concept of 
 the cosmical universe — itself only an idea — partly, because 
 they refer only to the synthesis of phenomena, which is em- 
 pirical. The absolute totality in the synthesis of conditions 
 must produce an ideal of pure reason. This ideal is totally 
 different from the cosmical concept, though in a sense re- 
 lated to it.' Toward the end, we observe, the re-adjustment 
 is barred. We find discussed, as in the Dissertation, since 
 everything comprehended under phenomena is changeable, 
 and, therefore, conditioned in its existence, an unconditioned 
 member the existence of which may be considered as abso- 
 lutely necessary .... a necessary being.'^ We are, of 
 course, made to know its Critical transcendental place. 
 
 These Dialectic ideas, Kant persists in instructing us, are 
 introduced in the interest of reason, that is, for the establish- 
 ment of certain principles and to introduce systematical 
 unity into our knowledge.^ But the Transcendental ideal is 
 still the archetype or Prototypon transcendentale.* 
 
 Phenomena and space are as emphatically as ever the 
 matter and the form in one and the same empirical intuition." 
 
 We are again enjoined never to dispense with the exten- 
 sion of the empirical use of the understanding,* that is, not 
 to indulge lazy reason,' though empirical arguments cannot 
 produce apodictic proof.* 
 
 He still holds, the idea is quite correct which sets up the 
 maximum as an archetype,' negations being nothing but 
 limitations, which they could not be unless there were the 
 substratum of the unlimited, the All.'" 
 
 1111,293. ^111,387. '111,439- * 111,393. 5 111,307, note. 
 
 "111,364. '111,462,512. »in,490. »in, 259. "111,396. 
 
1 69] KANT'S IN A UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 g j 
 
 Still, once more, we must not on that ground cease to em- 
 ploy the subordinate faculty for imparting logical form to any 
 given knowledge, the faculty by which the cognitions of the 
 understanding are arranged among themselves only, lower 
 rules under higher, the condition of the latter comprehend- 
 ing the condition of the former, as far as all this can be done 
 through comparison.' 
 
 It is impossible to allow transcendental hypotheses in the 
 speculative employment of reason, or the use of hyperphys- 
 sical instead of physical explanations ; and again on the Dis- 
 sertational ground, because reason is thus not in the least 
 advanced.^ 
 
 In the Critique not less than in the Dissertation, there 
 would be no excuse if reason were to surrender a causality 
 which it knows, and have recourse to obscure indemonstrable 
 principles of explanation, which it does not know.' 
 
 We have two expressions, world and nature, which fre- 
 quently run into each other. The first denotes the mathe- 
 matical total of phenomena and the totality of their syn- 
 thesis, either by composition or division. The world, how- 
 ever, is called nature if we look upon it as a dynamical whole, 
 and consider not the aggregation of -space and time, which pro- 
 duces quantity, but the unity in the existence of phenomena.* 
 
 It might be supposed that this is only an economical trick 
 of the reason for the purpose of saving itself trouble, a purely 
 hypothetical attempt which, if successful, would impart by 
 that very unity a certain amount of probability to the pre- 
 supposed principle of explanation. Such a selfish purpose, 
 however, can easily be distinguished from the idea accord- 
 ing to which we all presuppose that this unity of reason 
 agrees with nature, and that in this case reason does not 
 beg but bids, although we may be quite unable, as yet, to 
 determine the limits of that unity.* 
 
 1111,251. ''HI, 512. '111,425. ■'111,300. 5111^ 44j_ 
 
92 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF lyyo [170 
 
 As to the field of hypotheses, if the faculty of imagination 
 is not simply to indulge in dreams, but to invent and com- 
 pose under the strict surveillance of reason, it is necessary 
 that there should always be something perfectly certain, and 
 not only invented orresting on opinion, and that is \}s\e. pos- 
 sibility of the object itself. If that is given, it is then allow- 
 able, so far as its reality is concerned, to have recourse to 
 opinion.' 
 
 This opinion, however, if it is not to be utterly groundless, 
 must be brought in connection with what is really given, and, 
 therefore, certain as its ground of explanation.'' 
 
 This principle of complete determination relates to the 
 content and not only to the logical form.' 
 
 According to this principle, therefore, everything is re- 
 ferred to a common correlate, that is, to the total possibility 
 which, could it, the matter for all possible predicates, be 
 found in the idea of any single thing, would prove an affinity 
 of all possible things, through the identity of the ground of 
 complete determination.* 
 
 Here we reach again one of these re-adjustments of 
 thought so interesting to observe in the development of the 
 Critique from the Dissertation. 
 
 We take the idea of supreme wisdom for our rule in the 
 investigation of nature, and for the principle of its systemati- 
 cal and well-planned unity according to general laws, even 
 when we are not able to perceive that unity.'* 
 
 In other words, it must be the same to you, wherever you 
 perceive it, whether you say, God has wisely willed it so, or 
 nature has wisely arranged it so.^ 
 
 The sophisma figurae dictionis is shown up in the para- 
 logism of rational psychology and in the Cosmological con- 
 flict.' 
 
 ' III, 510. 2 it,i(j_ 3 Y\\, 394. * Ibid., note. 
 
 5 III, 467. "Ibid. '111,352. 
 
171] KANT'S INA UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF mo 93 
 
 Reason still follows its own course in its empirical, and 
 again a peculiar course in its transcendental use,' and Kant 
 keeps us in mind of the Dissertational origin of his idea of 
 the transcendental use of reason by saying : Whatever in an 
 object of the senses is not in itself phenomenal, I call intel- 
 ligible} 
 
 But a truce to quotations, the food of the bookworm. 
 
 J. The Relation of the Dissertation to Transcendental Esthetic 
 
 and Analytic, illustrated from the Amphiboly of 
 
 Reflective Concepts 
 
 It would be impossible to pursue the plan of citation with 
 the Transcendental Analytics, where the originative part of 
 the Dissertation is so much greater. Compact excerpts of 
 paragraphs and pages would be required to represent this 
 influence adequately. Nay, coincidences in words and turns 
 of phrase grow thick ; even the alter hircum mulgere, alter 
 cribrum supponere' is there.^ 
 
 The case is still stronger, of course, for the Transcenden- 
 tal Aesthetics. Strip it of its more careful and extensive 
 elaborations, that is, get rid of the Erlauterung above re- 
 ferred to and its congeners, and you have the Dissertation. 
 
 Instead of trying to place upon our pages what they can- 
 not hold, let us proceed to the end of the Transcendental 
 Aesthetics and Analytics, to the border of the Transcen- 
 dental Dialectics, whose less solid but still perceptible con- 
 nection with the Dissertation has been illustrated. Kant's 
 Anmerkung zur Amphibolie der Reflexionsbegrifife, by its 
 cogent, logical and historical presentation, will not only set 
 forth far better than any array of disjointed quotations the 
 true import of the two parts of the Critique, which it con- 
 
 1111,388. ■■'111,374. '11,420. 
 
 * Dass Einer den Bock melkt, der Andere ein Sieb unterhalt, III, 86. 
 
94 KANT 'S IN A UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 [172 
 
 eludes, but shed a flood of light on their relation to the Dis- 
 sertation. We have appropriated from it already the plea 
 for the term " transcendental place," when confessing our in- 
 ability to be as certain as a writer whom we greatly respect 
 in reference to the particular origin of the Dissertation. 
 Kant says : For want of such a transcendental topic, and de- 
 ceived by the amphiboly of reflective concepts, the cele- 
 brated Leibnitz erected an intellectual system of the world, or 
 believed at least that he knew the internal nature of things by 
 comparing all objects by the understanding only and by the 
 abstract formal concepts of his mind. Comparing all things 
 with each other by means of concepts only, he naturally 
 found no other difference but those by which the understand- 
 ing distinguishes its pure concepts from each other. The 
 conditions of sensuous intuition, which carry their own dif- 
 ferences, are not considered by him as original and inde- 
 pendent; for sensibility was with him a confused mode of 
 representation only, and not a separate source of representa- 
 tions. According to him, a phenomenon was the represen- 
 tation of the thing itself, though dififerent, in its logical form, 
 from knowledge by means of the understanding, because the 
 phenomenon, in the ordinary absence of analysis, brings a 
 certain admixture of collateral representations into the con- 
 cept of a thing which the understanding is able to separate. 
 In one word, Leibnitz intellectualized phenomena, just as 
 Locke, according to his system of Noogony, if I may use 
 such an expression, sensualized all concepts of the under- 
 standing, that is, represented them as nothing but empirical, 
 although abstract, reflective concepts. Instead of regarding 
 the understanding and sensibility as two totally distinct 
 sources of representation, which however can supply ob- 
 jectively valid judgments of things only in conjunction with 
 each other, each of these great men recognized but one of 
 them. This one, in their opinion, applied immediately to 
 
173] KANT 'S IN A UG URAL DISSER TA TION OF 1770 g 5 
 
 things themselves, while the other did nothing but to pro- 
 duce either disorder or order in the representations of the 
 former. 
 
 Leibnitz, accordingly, compared the objects of the senses 
 with each other as things in general and in the understand- 
 ing only. He did this, Jirst, so far as they are judged by the 
 understanding to be either identical or different. As he con- 
 siders their concepts only and not their place in intuition, in 
 which alone objects can be given, and takes no account of 
 the transcendental place of these concepts — whether the ob- 
 ject is to be counted among phenomena or among things 
 themselves — it could not happen otherwise than that he 
 should extend his principle of indiscernibility, which is valid 
 with regard to concepts of things in general, to objects of the 
 senses also (mundus phenomenon) and imagine that he thus 
 extended not inconsiderably our knowledge of nature. No 
 doubt, if I know a drop of water as a thing itself in all its in- 
 ternal determinations, I cannot allow that one is different 
 from the other, when their entire concepts are identical. 
 
 Secondly, the principle that realities as mere assertions 
 never logically contradict each other is perfectly true with 
 regard to the relation of concepts, but has no meaning what- 
 ever, either as regards nature or as regards that of which we 
 have no concept whatever, namely, a thing itself. Real oppo- 
 sitiori, as when A — B=0, takes place wherever two realities 
 being united in one subject, one reality annihilates the effect 
 of the other. This is constantly brought before us in nature 
 by all impediments and reactions which, depending on forces, 
 must be called realitates phenomena. 
 
 Thirdly, the Leibnitzian monadology has really no other 
 foundation than that Leibnitz represented the difference of 
 the internal and external in relation to the understanding 
 only. Substances must have something internal, which is 
 free from all external relations, and therefore from composi- 
 
g6 KANT 'S INA UG URAL DTSSER TA TION OF 1770 [ 1 74 
 
 tion. The simple, therefore, the uncompounded, is the 
 foundation of the internal, of things themselves. The inter- 
 nal in substances cannot consist in space, form, contact, or 
 motion, all these determinations being external relations. 
 We cannot, therefore, ascribe to substances any internal 
 state but that which belongs to our own internal sense, 
 namely, the state of representations. This is the history of 
 the monads which were to form the elements of the whole 
 universe, and the energy of which consists in representations 
 only, so that properly only within themselves can they be 
 active. 
 
 For this reason, the principle of a possible community of 
 substances could only be a pre-established harmony, not a 
 physical influence. 
 
 Fourthly, Leibnitz's celebrated doctrine of space and 
 time, in which he intellectualized these forms of sensibility, 
 arose entirely from the same delusion of transcendental re- 
 flection. If by the pure understanding alone I want to re- 
 present the external relations of things, I can do this only by 
 means of the concept of their reciprocal action ; if I want to 
 connect one state with another state of the same thing, this 
 is possible only in the order of cause and effect. Thus it 
 happened that Leibnitz conceived space as a certain order 
 in the community of substances, and time as the dynamical 
 sequence of their states. 
 
 That which space and time seem to possess as proper to 
 themselves and independent of things, he ascribed to the 
 confusion of these concepts, which made us mistake what is 
 a mere form of dynamical relations for a peculiar and inde- 
 pendent intuition, antecedent to things themselves. Thus 
 space and time became with him the intelligible form of the 
 connection of things themselves, namely of substances and 
 their states, all things being intelligible substances (substan- 
 tiae noumena). Nevertheless, he tried to make these con- 
 
1 75 ] KANT'S INA UGURAL DISSERTA TION OF 1770 97 
 
 cepts equal to phenomena, because he would not concede 
 to sensibility any independent kind of intuition, but ascribed 
 all, even the empirical representation of objects, to the un- 
 derstanding, leaving to the senses nothing but the contempt- 
 ible work of confusing and mutilating the representations of 
 the understanding. 
 
 What renders this criticism of conclusions by acts of mere 
 reflection extremely useful is, that it shows clearly the nullity 
 of all conclusions with regard to objects compared with each 
 other in the understanding only, and that it confirms at the 
 same time what we have so strongly insisted on, namely, that 
 phenomena, though they cannot be comprehended as things 
 themselves among the objects of the pure understanding, are, 
 nevertheless, the only objects in which our knowledge can 
 possess objective reality, i. e., where intuition corresponds to 
 concepts. 
 
 If this Kantian account of the difference between Criticism 
 and Leibnitzianism is not, within the limits we have assigned, 
 appHcable to the Dissertation, we are mistaken. 
 
 4. Conclusion — A Question and an Answer 
 
 If the Dissertation be all that we have argued it to be, how 
 is it that its pubhcation was followed by what may be called 
 the silent decade ? 
 
 Because after the turning-point, a number of other points 
 had to be reached, some of them far apart. 
 
 But how did it come to take so long, and what influences 
 were at work? 
 
 That is an interesting question, requiring a separate chap- 
 ter. But before it can be written, one point must be defi- 
 nitely settled. 
 
 After all, are we right in taking the Dissertation for the 
 turning-point? 
 
 If we are not, then the turning-point falls somewhere 
 
g8 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 [176 
 
 within the silent decade. If we are, then Kant, having en- 
 tered the right road, plodded silently on in the direction 
 indicated by the Dissertation as a guide-post till he reached 
 the goal, the Critique of Pure Reason. In other words, if we 
 are right, the Dissertation is the beginning of the end, though 
 the end be afar off. It is the beginning of the Critical per- 
 iod. If we are not, it is the Pre- Critical. The Critical period 
 begins somewhere else, and that somewhere else is later on. 
 
 We have been obliged to withhold assent from a very re- 
 spectable position on the Dissertation. We are on the pres- 
 ent occasion constrained, reluctantly, for a man of Professor 
 Windelband's soberness and solidity of judgment is not 
 rashly to be differed with, to cite Dr. Windelband adversa- 
 tively to Kant and leave the matter to the decision of the 
 reader. 
 
 According to Windelband, the system set forth in the 
 Dissertation was promptly given up again, and, therefore, 
 belongs to the Pre-Critical period. The doctrine presented 
 with an appeal to Malebranche in Section IV is precisely the 
 system of preformed harmony between cognition and reality 
 which Kant so energetically rejects in his letter of the 2 1st 
 of February, 1772, to Marcus Herz.' 
 
 The appeal to Malebranche does not seem to us very vig- 
 orous.^ It is semi- deprecatory and wears the appearance 
 rather of an obiter dictum than of an argument which the 
 writer intends to take his stand on. It is unnecessary to 
 insist on the fact that the passage in the letter to Herz refers 
 to Crusius and not, as Windelband intimates, to Malebranche, 
 the latter and Plato being distinctly classified otherwise, be- 
 cause Kant rejects the hyperphysical influence of Plato and 
 Malebranche as much as the pre-established intellectual har- 
 mony of Crusius. It suffices to affirm that the only notice- 
 
 ' Windelband, Ceschichte der Philosophie, S. 383. 
 ^ See the Scholium to paragraph 22. 
 
177] KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF lyyo gg 
 
 able difference between the Scholium and the passage in the 
 letter is, that the former begins : If it were right to overstep 
 the limits of certainty befitting metaphysics ; while the latter 
 concludes practically : But it isn't. Let the reader judge for 
 himself. Here is the passage in full. 
 
 Plato assumed as the primal source of the pure concepts 
 and principles of the understanding a former spiritual intui- 
 tion of the deity, Malebranche a perennial intuition of this 
 primal essence (or being, Urwesen) continuing even now. 
 Several moralists have assumed the same in regard to the 
 primary moral laws. Crusius assumes certain implanted 
 rules of judgment and concepts implanted by God ready- 
 maile, such as they must be in order to harmonize with ob- 
 jects. The former system might be called influxus hyper- 
 physicus, the last one harmonia praestabilita intellectualis. 
 But the deus ex machina in determining the origin and val- 
 idity of our cognition is as. completely without rhyme and 
 reason as any choice one can make. Besides the deceptive 
 circle in the conclusion concerning our cognition, it has the 
 disadvantage of giving aid to the cobwebs of brains pious or 
 subtilely fanciful.' 
 
 It is quite an intellectual habit with Kant, we wish to ob- 
 serve, to elaborate somebody's metaphysical view in Kant- 
 ian phraseology in order to reject it. In the Critique the 
 rejection is always accomplished with becoming ponderosity 
 and hence is unmistakable. In earlier writings the elabora- 
 tion is as full, but the rejection is sometimes only indicated. 
 There is an historical instance parallel to what we cannot but 
 consider Windelband's mistake. 
 
 In the Dreams of a Ghost-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of 
 Metaphysics, Kant spoke as follows : It would be beautiful if 
 such a systematic constitution of the spiritual world could be 
 concluded, or at all events could be surmised with probabil- 
 
 iVIII, 690. 
 
100 KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 [178 
 
 ity not merely from the general concept of the nature of a 
 spirit, which is all too hypothetical, but from some actual 
 and universally conceded observation. Presuming upon the 
 reader's indulgence, I insert an attempt of the kind, some- 
 what out of my way, to be sure, and far from a demonstra- 
 tion, but nevertheless giving occasion, it seems to me, for not 
 unpleasant surmises. 
 
 This intercalation' is very much in the nature of a Scho- 
 lium, would gladden the heart of a Swedenborgian as much 
 as this scholium would that of a follower of a Malebranche, 
 ends in as retractive a manner as the scholium, and to com- 
 plete the analogy, was mistaken by Mendelssohn as, we 
 think, the scholium is by Windelband. Kant's reply to the 
 former will answer the latter as well : " My attempt at an 
 analogy is not really a serious opinion of mine, but an ex- 
 ample how far one may unhindered go in philosophical fic- 
 tions where we have no data, and how needful it is to deter- 
 mine what is necessary to the solution of the problem and 
 whether the necessary data do not fail us;"' advice in sub- 
 stantial agreement, by the way, with the last sentence of the 
 scholium itself. 
 
 Really, Windelband's — as the instance of Mendelssohn 
 shows, far from unnatural — misunderstanding of an incidental 
 exhibition of a Kantian peciiliarity would not require to be 
 mentioned if it were not part of that meritorious author's 
 argument for relegating the Dissertation to the Pre- Critical 
 period of Kant. 
 
 On this point, the following passage in a letter from Kant 
 to his editor, Tieftrunk,^ seems to us to put Windelband at 
 issue with Kant himself: " I assent with pleasure to your 
 proposal for collecting and editing my minor writings. Only 
 I wish you would not include writings older than 1 770. In 
 this case, a German transla6on of my Inaugural Dissertation 
 > II, 342-345. '' VIII, 675. 3 VIII, 812. 
 
179] KANT'S INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF 1770 iqi 
 
 De Mundi Sensibilis et Intelligibilis might form the begin- 
 ning." We cannot conceive why Kant should have drawn 
 this line, unless he agreed with Mendelssohn and the present 
 writer. 
 
 One's difficulty in thus conceiving is not fanciful, but im- 
 plied in Kant's repugnance to having "writings no longer 
 consonant with his present mode of thinking {Denkart) '" 
 resurrected. The existence of the sentiment is none the less 
 but rather the stronger argument for being not confined to 
 Kant but a common one among men of intellectual self- 
 respect. Feeling as Kant did, would he have drawn the line 
 as he did, if Windelband were right? 
 
 •VIII, 596. 
 
Psychology and Education 
 
 » ■-• 
 
 Outlines of Psychology. 
 
 With Special Reference to the Theory of Education. New edition, re- 
 written in 1892. By James Sully. M. A., LL. D. 8vo. Cloth, ^82.50. 
 
 An exhaustive treatise upon the science of mind, and a model text-book for colleges and 
 universities. 
 
 Teacher's Handbook on Psychology. 
 
 With Special Application to the Art of Teaching, on the Basis of " Out 
 lines of Psychology." By James Sully, M. A. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 This volume is a condensation of the " Outlines," though largely rewritten for a more direct 
 educational purpose. / 
 
 Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical. 
 
 By Herbert Spencer. i2mo. Cloth, |!i.2S. 
 
 Consideiing the important bearings of the subject upon the public welfare, this book may be 
 regarded as one of the most valuable ever written, especially to those engaged or about to engage 
 in the work of teaching the young. 
 
 Education as a Science. 
 
 By Alexander Bain, LL. D., Professor of Logic in the University of 
 
 Aberdeen. (International Scientific Series.) i2mo. Cloth, J1.75. 
 
 In this work the author states that he has surveyed the "teaching art" as far as possible 
 from a scientific point of view — that is, testing ordinary experiences by bringing them under the 
 best criterion of Psychological law. 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO., Pttblislicis, 1, 3 & 5 BOND ST, NEW YORK. 
 
Macmillan & Co.'s Piiblications. 
 
 ■ — a-n-a . 
 
 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 With Especial Seference to the Formation and Developtnent of Its 
 I'robleTns and Conceptions. 
 
 By Dr. W. Windeleand, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Strasburg. Author- 
 zed iranslation by James H. Tufts, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the Univer- 
 sity of Chicago. 8vo., pp. 640. $s.oo nel. 
 
 PAIN, PLEASURE, AND ESTHETICS. 
 
 By Henry Rutgers Marshall. 8vo., cloth. Price $3.00. 
 
 Just Published. Uniform -with "The Logic of Hegel" 
 HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OP MIND. 
 
 Translated from "The Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences." With five Introduc- 
 tory Essays. By William Wallace, M. A., LL.O. Crown 8vo., cloth. Price |2. 50 ».■<. 
 COMPLETION OF THE NEW EDITION OF PROF. WALLACE'S 
 "LOGIC OF HEGEL." 
 Now Ready, in Two Volumes. 
 THE LOGIC OF HEGEL. 
 Translated from " The Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences." With PROLEGO- 
 MENA to the Study of Hegel's Logic and Philosophy. By William Wallace, M.A., LL D. 
 Translaiionj i vol. Prolegomena, i vol. 2 vols., crown 8vo. cloth. Price $2.50 each, net. 
 
 GENETIC PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 By David Jayne Hill, President of the University of Rochester, author of " Elements o^ 
 Psychology," " Social Influence of Christianity," etc. i2mo., cloth. Price )Ji. 75 w^^. 
 
 OUTLINES OP PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 By Harald HiJFFDiNG, Professor at the University of Copenhagen. Translated from the 
 German by Mary E. Lowndes. i2mo. $1.50, net. 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 By Dr. Theodor Ziehen, Professor in Jena. Translated by C. C. van Liew and Dr. 
 Otto Beyer. With 21 Illustrations. J1.50, net. 
 
 ETHIC : 
 
 Demonstrated in Geometrical Order, and divided into five Parts, which treat (i) of God ; (2) of 
 the Nature and Origin of the Mind ; (3) of the Nature and Origin of the Affects ; (4) of Human 
 Bondage, or of the Strength of the Affects ; (5) of the Power of the Intellect, or of Human Liberty. 
 Translated from the Latin of Benedict de Spinoza by W. Hale White ; Translation revised 
 by Amelia Hutchinson Stirling, M. A. (Edin.) Second edition, revised and corrected, 
 with new Preface. 8vo., cloth. J2.Z1; net. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OP TEACHING AND CLASS 
 
 MANAGEMENT. 
 
 By Joseph Landon, F, G. S., Vice-Principal and late Master of Method in the Saltley 
 Training College, Author of " School Management " in the Education Library. Crown 8vo., 
 cloth. With additional pages for notes. Price, $1.60 net. 
 
 NOW READY— No. S-MAY. 
 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW. 
 
 A new Bi-Monthly Publication under the Editorship of Professors J. M. Baldwin (Princeton 
 University) and J, M Cattell (Columbia College). Price, 75 cents : yearly subscription, $4.00. 
 
 Contents for May : Freedom and Psycho-Genesis, by A T. Ormond — The Case of John 
 Bunyan (III.), by JosiAH RoYCE — Fear as Primitive Emotion, by Hiram M. Stanley — Ex- 
 periments in Space Perception (I.), by J. H. Hyslop— Personality Suggestion, by J. M. Bald- 
 win— Shorter Contributions, Discussion, Psychological Literature, etc. 
 
 *^* Messrs. Macmillan & Co. are the Appointed Agents of the Columbia 
 University Press, of the Clarendon Press, Oxford, and of the Cambridge 
 University Press. 
 
 MACMZZiXiAIT (& CO., 
 
 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 
 
IMPORTANT BOOKS 
 
 ON EDUCATION. 
 
 Dr. Wm. T. Harris : I do not think you have ever printed 
 a book un education that is not worthy to go on any teacher's 
 reading-list, and the best list. 
 
 Lange's Apperception (De Garmo) 1.00 
 
 This is perhaps the most popular scientific monograph on edu- 
 cation that has appeared in Germany in recent times. It has 
 the rare merit of being at once thoroughly scientific and in- 
 tensly interesting and concrete. 279 pages. Cloth. 
 
 Compayre's History of Pedagogy (Payne) ..... .1.75 
 
 "The best and most comprehensive history of Education in 
 English." — Dr. G. S. Hall. 6 i8 pages. 
 
 Compayre's Lectures on Teaching (Payne) 1.75 
 
 "The best book in existence on the theory and practice of edu- 
 cation." — Supt. MacAlister, Philadelphia. 500 pages. 
 
 Compayre's PsychologyAppIied to Education (Payne) 90 
 
 A clear and concise statement of doctrine and application on 
 the science and art of teaching. 224 pages. 
 
 De Garmo's Essentials of Method 65 
 
 A practical exposition of methods with illustrative outlines of 
 common school studies. 119 pages. 
 
 Tracy's Psychology of Childhood 75 
 
 This is the first ^if^^ra/ treatise covering in a scientific manner 
 the whole field of child psychology. 94 pages. Octavo. Paper. 
 
 Lindner's Psychology (De Garmo) 1.00 
 
 The best Manual ever prepared from the Herbartian standpoint. 
 247 pages. 
 
 Rosmini's Method in Education (Grey) 1. 50 
 
 "The most important pedagogical work ever written." — 
 Thomas Davidson. 389 pages. 
 
 Sanford's Laboratory Course in Physiological Psy- 
 chology. In press. 
 The course includes experiments upon the Dermal Senses, Static 
 and Kinesthetic Senses, Taste, Smell, Hearing, Vision, Psycho- 
 physic. 
 
 The above are but a few of our many books for professional 
 
 reading of teachers. Complete list sent free on application. 
 
 D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers, 
 
 BOSTON, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO. 
 
COLUMBIA COLLEGE 
 
 IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK 
 
 DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPH Y AND EDUCATION 
 
 INSTRUCTORS 
 
 Nicholas Murray Butler, Ph. D \ . Professor of Philosophy. 
 
 . James McKeen Caitell, Ph. D Professor of Experimental Psychology. 
 
 James Hervey Hyslop, Ph. D Instructor in Logic and Ethics. 
 
 Li vingston Farrand. M.Vi....... .^ ^J^ttsirvrfnr in Physiological Psychology. 
 
 Henry kutgers Marshall, A. M Leclu¥erlyrr7[esihetics. 
 
 Assistant in Philosophy. 
 
 Walter Lowrie Hervey, Ph. D. . : '.Professor in the Teachers College. 
 
 John Francis Woodhull, A. B .Professor in the Teachers College. 
 
 Charles Alpheus Bennett, B. S .Professor in the Teachers College. 
 
 John Franklin Reigart, A. B Professor in the Teachers College. 
 
 Clarence Edmund Meleney, A. B. Professor in the Teachers College. 
 
 Robert Arrowsmith, Ph. D Professor in the Teachers College, 
 
 Frank Thomas Baker, A. M Professor iu the Teachers College. 
 
 UNIVERSITY COURSES 
 The numbers indicate the number of exercises per week. 
 
 Logic : Elementary logic, deductive and inductive, (2); Advanced logic and 
 scientific method (i). 
 
 Psychology : Elements of psychology (2) ; Advanced psychology (2) ; Phys- 
 iological psychology, introductory course (3) ; Physiological psychology, ad- 
 vanced course (2); Abnormal and comparative psychology (^); Anthropology 
 (2 1 Experimental psychology (2) ; Experimental psychology, advanced course 
 (2) ; Research in laboratory (daily) ; Educational psychology and child study (2) ; 
 Aesthetics (i). 
 
 Philosophy : Historical introduction to philosophy (2); British philosophy 
 from Locke to Herbert Spencer (2) ; The philosophy of Kant and his successors 
 (2); .Seminar (i). 
 
 Ethics": Ethics, introductory course (2); Ethics, advanced course (2); 
 Practical and applied ethics (2) ; Seminar (i). 
 
 Education: History of education, introductory course (i); History of edu- 
 cation, advanced course (i); Principles of education ( i );' Institutes of educa- 
 tion (l); Methods of teaching in elementary schools' (i^0; Methods of teach- 
 ing in secondary schools, 7 courses (15); Practice in teaching and supervision (3) ; 
 Seminar (i). 
 
 EQUIPMENT 
 
 The equipment of the Department is very complete, and constantly being added 
 to. It includes library facilities, laboratories of experimental and physiological 
 psychology, the beginnings of an Educational Museum, and the Horace Mann 
 school for observation and practice in teaching. The advantages of the Depart- 
 ment are open to men and vpomen (through Barnard College) on equal terins. 
 
 FEES 
 The annual tuition fee for candidates for a degree is $150, payable in two equal 
 instalments. A matriculation fee of ^5 is also charged when the student first en- 
 rolls himself in Columbia College. Tbelees for degrees are as follows : Bachelor 
 of Arts, $15; Master of Arts, $25; Doctor of Philosophy, ^35. 
 
 Students who are not candidates for any degree pay the matriculation fee of ^5, 
 and a tuition fee of $15 for each hour of attendance per week per year, with a 
 maximum fee of S150. 
 
 The special circular of this Department, containing detailed information re- 
 garding the courses of instruction and research, the equipment, and. the require- 
 ments for degrees, will be sent on application to the 
 
 Department of Philosophy and Education, 
 
 Columbia College, New York.