MASTER NEGA TIVE NO. 91-80144 MICROFILMED 1991 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as piart of the "Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project" Funded by the NATIONAL END0WME;NT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States ~ Title 17, United States Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material . . . Columbia University Library reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. AUTHOR: WHEELER, CHARLES KIRKLAND TITLE: CRITIQUE OF PURE KANT PLACE: BOSTON DA TE : 1911 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET Master Negative # Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record 193KD W562 { •WiWOTn^ • • < I' Wheeler, (Jharles Kirkland. Critique of pure Kant ; or, A real realism vs. a fictitious idealism; in a word, the bubble and monstrosity of the Kantian raetaphysic, by Charles Kirkland Wheeler ... Boston, Tlie Arakelyan press, 1911. 298 p. front. Cport.) 20^*=". $1.50 1 1. jCant, Irnmanuel. 1724-1804. Kritik der reinen vernunft. 11-30799 B2797.W5 Copyright A 303155 Restrictions on Use: __________„_„^ FILM SIZE: 35^KH>Kl __ REDUCTION RATIO: [j^ IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA (^ IB IIB DATE FILMED: SL'^L^I INITIALS j/ C, HLMEDBY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. INC WOODBRIDGE. 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Emerson Centennial Souvenir Card. 30 cents. if \ i\ CONTENTS PREFACE 7 CHAPTER I A Foreword on Historic and Current Metaphysic in General ^' CHAPTER II Kant No Exception ^^ CHAPTER III Kant^s Scorn of the Possibility of Knowledge of Objec- tive Truth Absolute 39 CHAPTER IV Kant's Charge of the Consciousness with Being a Mon- umental Falsifier If Not a Downright Liar 45 CHAPTER V The Vanity and Farce of Academic Explanations of How What is Within the Mind is Yet Perceived as Without It 57 CHAPTER VI Primary Demonstration of an External World Absolute 65 CHAPTER VII Second and Physical Demonstration of an External World Absolute 75 CHAPTER VIII Demonstration of the Perception of the External Physi- cal World Absolute and Incidental Third One of Its Existence ^ CHAPTER IX Demonstration of Space and Time as External and Absolute ^°^ CHAPTER X The Bewilderment and Error of Kanf s A Priori Intui- tion—His Total Bewilderment and Error at a Climax ^^^ 'V '^**.i.; I ll' \ CHAPTER XI EflFects or Impressions of the External World Absolute on the Mind a Fiction — Kant's Phenomena a Fic- tion — For What Is Mind? IS9 CHAPTER XII Demonstration That What Only in External Perception We Perceive Is the External World Absolute and That All Illusion Springs Only of Not Perceivmg It Exhaustively, Mechanically loi CHAPTER XIII Persistence of Perception by the Mind vs. Persistence of Impression on It ^93 CHAPTER XIV The Sensibility No Passive Faculty of the Mind, Neither Any Faculty of the Mind at All as is Neither Mem- ory any Faculty of It 201 CHAPTER XV Demonstration of Kant's Categoricals or the Sort of Nothing the Origin He Assumed for Them 209 CHAPTER XVI The Primordial Mental the Intrinsic Nature of the Ex- ternal World Absolute 217 CHAPTER XVII The Mind of Kant's Exploitation a Sheer Abstraction — a Phantom of a Riotous Fancy 231 CHAPTER XVIII The Academic Legend of Mind Knowing Only Mind Only Academic Nonsense 237 CHAPTER XIX Original Versus A Priori Intuition 249 CHAPTER XX Summary in Brief and Large Conclusions in Philosophy and Criticism Arrived At 207 PART II CHAPTER XXI The Critique of the Practical Reason or Kant Once Judge on the Bench NOW Down Within the Bar as Prosecuting Attorney 285 Appendix A 291 i 'I I ^ CRITIQUE OF PURE KANT OR A Real Realism vs. A Fictitious Idealism IN A WORD The Bubble and Monstrosity OF THE Kantian Metaphysic BY CHARLES KIRKLAND WHEELER •{J. "iVb, what we desire is Truth, Truth only, even if it be something most frightful and most ugly. Never ask if a truth be profita- ble, or if it be a calamity''— Nietzsche. BOSTON 368 Congress Street 1911 MUi- Oi ''vv't/A^s^-tA (^/> 2.^^^ Copyright, 191 1 By Charles K. Wheeler. I - 6 i£ / am God in Nature; I am a weed by the wall. — Emerson, DEDICATED To the Propagation of the Hundredth Century Philosophy, or the Doctrine of our Oneness with the ONE — oneness of ourselves individually as a part, and of ourselves and all things collectively as a form or aspect of the ONE, with the ONE; and Doctrine of the Oneness of source of consciousness and the physical They reckon ill who leave me out. If me they Hy I am the wings, I am the doubter and the doubt; I am the hymn the Brahman sings. — Emerson. J % Monism is not the identity of nature of mind and matter, which is to say is not the intercommen^urability of mind an Part I CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON Page 123— 7th line from bottom, read— better, in place of "beter." Page 255— 8th line from bottom, read— sensibility, in place of "sinsibility." Page 276— 1st line from bottom, read— spiritual, in place of "spirtal." What Illusions and Delusions do men live in in their Theories^ What Reality do they live in in their practi- cal, every-day lifef K 1 CRITIQUE OF PURE KANT If ever there was in the whole history of Philosophic thought what has been more barren of truth, meanwhile, more rife with dire mischief than anything else, it is Philosophy understood as the contemplation of mind in the abstract, and as "the occupation of the reason, ' the reason as divorced from the senses, "with itself, and on which it is dogmatically assumed, that the activ- ity of the senses, if not even the senses themselves, is dependent. And yet this describes not only Kantian but also, in good part, academic Philosophy, since the triumvirate of Kant, Hegel, and Schopenhauer. A Foreword on Historical and Current Metaphysic In General Even in Kant's time, as well as in all time be- fore him and his great work — great in bulk — was evolved and written, the general, well-nigh universal conviction was that the manifest universe was a snap creation ; but that notion is now as com- pletely obsolete with all intelligent minds as a last year's setting sun. The universe an evolution has come to take its place; the universe an evolution what is as fundamentally a different thing from the universe a snap creation as is a grown rose from a maufactured one. And, necessarily, miust a meta- physic or philosophy that is a fit for the latter be a misfit for the former; and, too, be now antiquated and worthless. And yet, even today, the academic hierarchy at the centres of learning, in their dis- gusting and deadly Bourbonism, go right on dis- coursing metaphysics and philosophy in terms of the universe a snap creation, as though the only difference between the one universe and the other was that between tweedledom and tweedledee; go right on discoursing as though nothing had hap- / i8 Critique of Pure Kant pened in the last hundred years, — no earthquake, as it were, with the earth opening and swallowing up their childish, petty, and petted notions ; no bomb explosion at the very heart of metaphysics and philosophy current since the days of Kant, Hegel and Schopenhauer. And, still, it is very truth that the increase of knowledge during the last century has been greater than during all the thousand centuries or more gone before put together that man has been on the planet. But what is that to a stupid, stolid, and effete metaphysics ! What is it to an Egyptian mummy ! Then again, the drift of this vast increase of knowledge of which the universe an evolution is one considerable, and perhaps the leading item, is to reduce the extreme or absolute divorce, of Kant's day, of the any manifestation from that manifest- ing, divorce of the physical from mind, to well-nigh the vanishing point. But what, again, is even that, momentous as it is, to that same stupid, stolid, effete metaphysics; what to an Egyptian mummy ! And, yet, is ifc nothing to be reckoned with, in- deed, that it has come to be seen that you can little better wrench the physical from mind and still have anything left at all, left anything at all even of mind, than you can wrench from a plane one of its two surfaces and still have left anything even of the plane at all? Nevertheless, the Kantian metaphysic, which is identified with this almost absolute divorce, is still the "golden calf' before which to this hour the A Foreword on Metaphysics in General 19 whole academic world is prostrate as before a very god — prostrate before, I had liked to have said, as before very God ! Men, in truth, are slow enough to move out of the old and into the new even when of the error of the old and of the truth of the new there is physical demonstration to be afforded, as the history of the warfare of science only too abundantly assures us; but when, as in metaphysical philosophy, there is never, or rarely, such physical demonstration with- in reach, and only a rational one at the most, within the possibilities in support of a proposition, they are infinitely slower still to move out of a rut of their long training and thinking, until it would seem sometimes as though only a million horse-power derrick could lift them out of it. And hence what is only the to be expected is likely to happen ; and that metaphysical philosophy, and philosophy in general in fact, will lag a thousand, perhaps ten thousand years, behind physical science, and the world's progress generally. Meantime, it has, every now and then its fresh makeshifts for genuine straight philosophy as just now, for example, it has in Pragmatism what itself, metaphorically speaking, is, at best, but as a fugus to a musical theme; still that its sponsors, and par- ticularly its most eminent one, would seem working night and day, straining every nerve to jack it up — to keep up the figure — to the dignity of very a musical theme, pure and simple, itself. Meantime, I say, metaphysical philosophy in- clines to have its makeshifts, as just now in Prag- 20 Critique of Pure Kant matism, but not its revolution which is its most pressing need; not revolution, because those re- sponsible for the former have just independence and originality enough to conjure up a freak substi- tute, but not enough to discover and correct the gross fundamental errors of what, once these were eliminated, might assume in very truth the dignity of genuine metaphysical philosophy itself. But why, why, for centuries, has academic meta- physical philosophy made no material advance? True, system has succeeded system; but mere suc- cession of systems is not progress. There is, to this hour, not onl^ no theory of mind and its relations to its medium, commanding the interest and respect of intelligent and cultivated minds, generally, but there is not such at his moment, having even the indorsement of metaphysicians, in general, them- selves; — and wherefore, as I have said, Pragma- tism and Humianism, the latest freak candidates for philosophical recognition. Meanwhile, for metaphysicians themselves as a class, there is, among men of sense and learning, outside metaphysicians themselves, only a waning regard, only, as just hinted, an ill concealed con- tempt even, quite the contrary of the growing re- spect in which men of modern science are being held. But why only stagnation in one case, and all progress in the other? Why only a pitying suffer- ance for the metaphysician, but a profound regard for the man of science? Why but that, on a last analysis, every philosopher of front rank down to this hour, has set out with a pure assumption instead I « A Foreword on Metaphysics in General 21 of only with what is of the most absolute knowl- edge; has set out with the rank dogmatic assump- tion of the primacy and transcendency of the con- sciousness or conscious mind what we can by no possibly positively know and can at best only be- lieve ; a proposition, in fact, the most childish and in- ane, and of which there is not, high nor low, far nor near, so mjuch as the shadow of evidence or proof; — has set out with this instead of with the three great primary facts of consciousness of which we have the most absolute knowledge. This on a last analysis. And then on a proximate one why, again, but that the metaphysician — or philosopher — prima- rily makes himself utterly ridiculous; — (i) generally, when not wobbling as to the validity of the primary consciousness, by repudiat- ing that validity. (2) often, by expending oceans of mental ammu- nition in debating whether the external world of our sensuous perception is a world absolute, or not; and this, too, yet that assuming at the outset with- out question or quibble, the existence of other human beings than himself, which other human beings are themselves an external world absolute (supposing them to exist), and known to exist only with a knowledge contingent on very that of the existence of the external physical absolute about the existence of which is all this academic fuss and feathers of uncertainty ; (3) often, again, by wasting many times the samje amount of brain force in debating whether we 22 Critique of Pure Kant veritably perceive such world, or not, and ending, as a rule, with flatly denying that we do ; (4) almost invariably, by divorcing such as he recognizes as alone the mental from the physical, and then harrying a fraction of that mental into the endeavor to lift itself by its own bootstraps as it were; the endeavor, that is, to spin unassisted out of its own belly, spider like, the philosophy of its own nature and relations; and even not only that of its own nature and relations but also that of what might be the nature and relations of the whole mental altogether, — an endeavor as senseless and futile as would be an attempt at the explanation of a rectangular plane, blind to one of its surfaces, in the absence of which the plane itself does not even exist to explain ; (5) by religiously refusing to recognize, for a moment, physics as anything that could in the least afford a clue to the solution of problems in meta- physics ; (6) by steadily either overlooking, or ignoring one of the three great primary facts of conscious- ness, one yet well-nigh as conspicuous and unques- tioned by the mind as answering to objective reality absolute as either of the two others of awareness of one's own existence, and again of external per- ception, the fact, namely, of the recognition of the existence of a plurality of minds and their experi- ence ; — either by overlooking, or by ignoring this fact, first, as a fact of consciousness simply, and again, as a working factor, in any attempt at the elaboration of a system of philosophy ; and this last, A Foreword on Metaphysics in General 23 still that, as a working factor, such recognition is a sine qua non datum in any demonstration, the any primary demonstration at least, of the objective truth absolute of the existence of an objective world ab- solute, even of a two^fold such world. And let here clearly be understood a most im- portant discrimination to be made. So, mind that I do not say that the metaphysician has not recog- nized the existence of other minds, other human beings, than himself, as objective realities, for that, of course, he has done, and which it is only vulgar, not philosophical to do. That is not by complaint and his error. But what is, is that he, as a metaphysician or philosopher, has not recognised our recognition of other minds, first, as a primary fact of conscious- ness simply, and then again as a working factor in the solution of mind-world problems. It is that he has not recognized our recognition of the existence of a plurality of minds, between which, the recogni- tion of our recognition of the existence of a plural- ity of minds as a simple fact of consciousness, and the recognition of their existence as an obpjective fact absolute, there is an infinite difference. And I repeat, — and note well the discrimina- tion, — that my criticism is not that he, at such time, has not assumed in the matter, for he has; and assumed the existence of other minds than his own. It is not that at all, since he, as a metaphys- ician, has no business to assume at the outset the objective existence, the objective existence absolute, of anything. His business at starting is solely with the primary facts of consciousness, and his con- I 24 Critique of Pure Kant sciousness, for he, in the beginning, is not supposed to know any other; and with the primary facts of consciousness as such facts of consciousness simply ; and only with the any possible correlated objective facts absolute as such are first argued and demon- strated from those primary facts of consciousness. The latter are, at the ou|et, the metaphysician's only asset ; his only legitimate capital to set up in busi- ness with. Or these, shall we say, are the shell which the chick of subjective knowledge is to peck its way out of into the open of objective knowledge, even of objective knowledge absolute. Only these primarily has he to labor with for returns, which is to say for convictions whether as to other subjec- tive, or as to objective truth, such absolute, or other- wise. Whether there are actually other minds than each his own to recognize, is no matter. That recognition that such there are is just as much a fact of consciousness as were there none other; just as much such fact as is the perception of stone or tree, or as is one's awareness of his own existence. And to slight the bearing of even one of the three great primary facts of consciousness were bad enough ; but to blink that one of the immeasurable moment of the recognition of other minds than each his own and their experience, borders on a philosophical crime. It is at least a stupendous mistake fraught with nothing less than philosophic calamity; and still a mistake, as I repeat, and repeat made by every philosopher since philosophy began. The mistake makes simply impossible the A Foreword on Metaphysics in General 25 demonstration, or at least impossible the most pri- mary demonstration, of the one thing of forempst philosophical concern, the thing, namely, of the ex- istence of the two-fold external world absolute, of one part a plurality of minds, and of another, of what we recognize as the physical. In short, it might about as soon be expected to determine the dimensions of a triangle with a knowledge of only two of the three geometrical ele- ments that must be known to do it, as to expect a solution of mind-world problems with a recognition of only two of the three facts of consciousness in- volved in that solution. It would be nearly as hope- less in the one case as in the other. The two facts of consciousness, facts of awareness of one's own existence, and of external perception, and then the third, one of the recognition of the existence of other minds, as facts of consciousness simply, are the bed-rock foundation of all genuine metaphysics and philosophy — and nothing less is. And par- ticularly, with this last fact scorned, or overlooked, is every metaphysical or philosophical system, how- ever elaborately and ingeniously mortised and girded, but a tumble-down shack from the start. And still, for all this, as I am going to assure the reader even again, it is hardly too much to say that every philosopher born under the sun since the be- ginning of philosophy, has, in his any attempt to work out a solution of mind-world problems, either scorned, or overlooked it — overlooked it, rather, as would appear. And still, too, have they one and all, these pseudo philosophers, who have scuttled 26 Critique of Pure Kant their own ships at the moment of weighing anchor, hoped to reach port and haven of philosophic rest; and have even made pretense of having done so. But, of course, it was only to their own satisfaction that they ever did, not to that of others. Doubt it ? Well, that no one has achieved more is testified to to this very hour, of the time immemorial lack of unanimity of opinion touching philosophic funda- mentals among the maritime brethren each on a like voyage of discovery of all the others. Meanwhile, every voyager has created more problems than he has solved, besides raising no little dust of uncertainty about not a few he has affected to clear up but failed to. These, then, the foregoing, in part at least, why academic transcendental philosophy has so long re- mained at a standstill, besides being sneered at; and why metaphysicians themselves command but indifferent regard. But systems of philosophy— sys- tem of Kant, system of Hegel, system of Schopen- hauer, and that of Fichte and of Schiller and the rest — the crazy-patch philosophy of the conglom- erate ensemble of them all ! Yet, why should there be systems of philosophy, more than systems of modern science? Why is there? Why? — Only, that every one extant of them all is rotten at the core in respect at least of somie one or more, or even all, the fundamental fallacies I have named, and with special emphasis on the one I have particularly called attention to. Or only, again, th^t the scien- tific method in metaphysic, if not positively scouted, is at least ignored. .v; A". A Foreword on Metaphysics in General 27 But it is at least astonishing that in the whole history of philosophy, no system has ever set out with the recognition of all the three great primary facts of consciousness, upon which I have laid so much stress, namely, fact of awareness of one's own ex- istence, fact of external perception, and fact of the recognition of the existence of other minds than each his own ; astonishing that none has ever started with the recognition of all these as facts of con- sciousness simply, and again, as working factors, all of them, in the solution of mind-world problems, only as with the recognition of which it started, and as with which labored or wrestled, could the system promise a success and be any way worthy of the august appellation of either metaphysic or philosophy; only as with which it set out could its conduct be after the manner of science in physics. But is there never to be escape out of this meta- physical wilderness, this philosophical delirium, this crazy-patch ensemble of speculations of Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and the lesser lights in the metaphysical firmament, ensemble so intellectually sickening for its contradictions and absurdities that even the exponents of it themselves suffer by reflec- tion in the estimate in which their fellowmen hold them? No, never; or, at least, not until that revolution I have hinted at comes and when then philosophy will start with something better than assumption, and the pure, raw, rank assumption, implicit when not explicit, of the primacy and transcendency of the consciousness or conscious miind. This as- 28 Critique of Pure Kant sumption is its very damnation from the outset from which no enterprise of pursuit of it afterwards ever retrieves it. The philosopher worthy of the name, has at setting out, no business with assump- tions — not with one, as I have already insisted on. And I repeat that his business, primarily, is only with the facts, the three great primary facts, of consciousness what are nothing of assumption whatever, but matters of the most absolute knowl- edge. And a philosophy is worse than worthless, it is a positive calamity as it has any other begin- ning than with these, and with less than them all. And yet, must I say aguin, that there is not a meta- physician of any considerable note in the whole history of metaphysical philosophy, not one of the present generation even, who has not set out other- wise — not one; not one who has set out with the three primary facts of consciousness, alone; not one who has not at least overlooked the one of them of foremost moment of the three ; not one who has set out only with what he absolutely knows; not one who has not set out with what simply he can only believe, and with the assumption of the aboriginality and transcendency of consciousness, or the conscious mind which he can by no possibility more than believe. However, once comes the revolution above hinted, once a philosophy that sets out with only what we absolutely know, and what then ? Why then, maybe, that even yet, it will turn out that the vulgar view, the view even of the plain- man of the back-woods, of the nature and relation A Foreword on Metaphysics in General 29 of mind and matter, what the stilted and pedantic academic would hardly deign to consider, will prove at last more nearly the true view after all. Maybe, even yet, that the academic legend that "mind knows only mind," which has well-nigh passed into an axiom, will prove in the end to have no standing in court at all, but, rather, be relegated to the refuse heap of academic old junk. Well, we are to see what, if might be, some opening and auguries of such coming event. The mystery of mysteries is how anything came to be, how anything, mind or matter came to be, not how a particular universe and ours found being. The former answered and the latter is. To say it had an author is only to push inquiry further back, for who or what was the author of that author? To affect even to apprehend in regard to it were bad enough; but to aflfect to comprehend in the matter altogether and to comprehend it as Kant did, and as does every Idealist, — to say nothing of others, — as conscious mind as author of itself and all things, only exercises • every rational mind with sickening disgust. But yet we may, at least, from the evidences within our knowledge know something, if not of the author- ship of the universe of mind and matter that we know obtains, then of its origin, or if not of its final origin, then of irs proximate final origin, if I may so say, and that that is what is much the analogue of seed and egg: is much that analogue, and when then again we are face to face with the mystery of mysteries of how anything came to be, how that what in the universe is much the analogue of seed and egg, came to be. The most primary movement of the Absolute Reality (the Primordial Mental,) of which we have any knowl- edge, is that as that Absolute Reality projects Itself in the centrifugal, and returns upon Itself in the cen- tripetal; and in virtue of which, the movement itself, worlds revolve about suns, and suns about suns; and again, in virtue of the return stroke of the centripetal of which movement and the ensuing impact of the Ab- solute Reality on Itself, life, mind and consciousness, in ascending order, result. II Kant No Exception But now, the point that chiefly concerns us just here, in the present writing, is, Was there never an exception among pretenders to philosophy as to the fundamental errors indicated, and that exception Immanuel Kant? No, not even one, and that one, Kant. Not even he, but at starting makes the same tumble into the same pitfalls, pitfalls of his own digging, with all the rest. For, at the outset, (a) he, even he, impeaches the validity of the primary consciousness; (b) even he overlooks or ignores the primary fact of consciousness, as such fact simply, of our recognition of the existence of a plurality of minds and their experience, and fails to avail himiself of it as a working factor in the solution of mind-world problems; (c) even he thinks to divorce utterly the reason from the senses, the sen- suous experience, and the external world absolute, and it still function at all and in all its integrity independent of them; (d) even he is exercised with no little doubt and debate as to whether there is an outlying world absolute, or not; (e) even he denies outright our perception of such world; and (f) he, even he, is given over to the bewilderment and aca- demic inanity of the mix-up, interaction, and mutual modification of the subject absolute and the object absolute, such that neither is itself any 34 Critique of Pure Kant Kant No Exception 35 longer, yet that, at the last, the two, such as they have become, constitute the percipient and the perceived of that external perception as in the end falls to us, the perceived thereof constituting, v^e are assured, v^hat is our only external v^orld v^e are privileged to perceive. And these fatal fallacies of Kant ob- taining early in the exploitation of his metaphysical notions, necessitated that his whole scheme of metaphysics be a crumbling ruin at his heels with every step taken in its elaboration ; necessitated that — to change the figure — the offspring of his metaphysical travail be an infant still-born, and which his whole after agony of dialectics was only an effort to galvanize into an appearance of a thing of life what was, in fact, only a thing of death. And, indeed, any one, of itself and alone, of these stupendous blunders is quite enough to hand over to oblivion at last any theory of mind and its relations however skilfully and ingeniously drawn, — and of course it does this for Kant's; does this for his which, still that for more than three gen- erations the whole academic world has been buncoed ]jy it, has not the merit of being thus drawn, and has only the demerit of being so clumsily exploited with a mixture of fog and fancy as to be quite the despair of his expounders and critics with any unanimity to resolve into clear and intelligent mean- ing. Moreover, even nothing more than the second (b) of these most michievous mistakes is needed to account for the situation, hereafter again to be alluded to, in which, at one stage of his exploitation > ■i i of his doctrine, Kant found himself, and of which was for the moment made so impressively aware; nor needed again why, most surely, will at last his whole Transcendental ^thestic be relegated to the limbo of metaphysical old junk; and he himself left, not at all a milestone to mark the progress of meta- physical philosophy, but left merely a notable figure in its history. Besides, it is not to be passed over without re- mark that these, Kant's fundamental blunderings and errors, some of them at the very threshold of his entry upon the discussion of his subject, and all of them early in that discussion, imposed upon him much what a lie, once told, does upon the liar to keep his lie in countenance, as we say. As the liar, to accomplish this, has to follow up his first departure from the truth by endless hedging and dodging, and even with a thousand and one other straight-out lies, so Kant, to afford his own early departures from inerrant doctrine the varnish of the living truth, had to follow them up with a grossly inflated apologetic of a thousand and one pages of contra- diction, enigma, and mystifications, and even other as unequivocal error as his original. And as with the lie of the outright liar, had it but been the truth, only a few words, comparatively, would have been needed to afford it exhaustive utterance; so with Kant's foundation stone to his philosophy, had it but been solid rock instead of quicksand, not a tithe of the literature of the Critique of the Pure Reason — to say nothing of the needlessness altogether of the Critique of the Practical Reason — would have 36 Critique of Pure Kant been required for a genuine metaphysic or philoso- phy; meantime would have been avoided the con- tradiction, enigma, and absurdity with which that philosophical romance abounds. And indeed, we are all quite aware how the space around a mathematical point is infinite, while the point itself, even a concrete one, if such might be assumed, occupies very little. And so Kant, having first missed the truth itself is found swirling and discoursing voluminously around it and far around it — not knowing, of course, that it is only round it he is talking — and in the vain endeavor to come upon it, the truth itself: hence the bloated volumes of his two Critiques. However, nevertheless the gigantic intellectual throes to make pass the spurious for the genuine, error for truth, the still-born for the living, still, in the main, only the spurious, only error, only the dead, have we after all, in the Critique of the Pure Reason of Imimanuel Kant. Only this after all, and more for the one reason than for any other that he sought to determine the parallax, as one might say, of the remotest metaphysical fixed star or stars with only as it were the earth's diameter for a base line, which could be calculated with nothing less than the ^earth's orbit's diameter for such line; sought, in other words, to solve fundamental problems of mind with less than the recognition of all the primary facts of consciousness, what could be exhaustively solved only with the recognition of all, and with, withal, the recognition at least of the validity of the primary consciousness, to start with. Kant said that we have only subjective knowledge, and because having only such, can have no knowledge of objective truth, objective truth absolute; that is, can have no knowledge of our own existence even; — that we can have none, we whom we can have no knowl- edge of the existence of, but whom still we know to know tnat we can have no knowledge of our own ex- istence, and because our knowledge is only subjective! Oh! wonderfully profound Immanuel Kant! wonder- fully profound! The solution of problems in metaphysics involves an appeal to physics for suggestion, demonstration, and illumination;* and only as this is recognized must not solution limp and halt and finally in many, if not in all instances, fail altogether. Wlio does not know this in this day and generation must himself be little better than a fraud as a philosopher, and his philos- ophy a joke in the estimation of first intelligences of all mankind. Ill Kant's Scorn of the Possibility of Knowledge of Objective Truth Absolute But Kant setting out under such a cloud of mis- giving and error, setting out even with a repudiation of the validity of the primary consciousness itself, )liow would it, how could it, be expected that he would ever arrive at truth at all? How would it, how could it, be expected that he would ever know whether there was or was not such a thing as ob- jective truth absolute, the truth that first and above all it should have been his wish, and was his need to know? — how, even know whether he himself really existed, much less whether there are, or are not, the other objective truths absolute of an objective world absolute, and of the perception of that world, as there were any such? Of course it would not, could not, be expected that he would, or could, ever know; nay, more, and that he should ever, would be impossible — and he did not know. And indeed he himself as much as declared that he did not, for he contended that "Knowledge of objective truth [absolute] is impossible"; which was even to say 40 Critique of Pure Kant that knowledge of our own existence is impossible ; was to say that he, Kant, didn't know that he ex- isted ! And, pray, didn't Kant know, poor man, that he existed? I have said was to say that we do not know that we exist; for, what is objective truth absolute? What, but truth that does not depend on our think- ing, thinking its existence for its existence; and our own existence, of course, does not depend on our thinking that existence. So, I say that very our own existence is objective truth absolute, or else zve don't exist; and we have knowledge of that objec- tive truth absolute, or else, again, we don't know that we exist ; which as we do not, then our aware- ness of our existence as it would seem to be, is no evidence either of our own existence, or of our knowledge of that existence, which — that our own awareness of our own existence is no evidence either that we exist, or that we know that we do — is nothing less than a reductio ad absurdam, of the whole proposition that "knowledge of objective truth [absolute] is impossible." And was, then, Kant quite altogether a fool, as he as good as declared that our awareness of our own existence is no evidence of our existence, or of our knowledge of it? — as he de- clared that all knowledge of objective truth absolute is impossible? One would almost say so. Besides, reflect that Kant, in contending that knowledge of objective truth absolute is impossible, was contend- ing that consciousness, as it delivered that we had knowledge of the objective truth absolute of our "*V?Jrt,> Knowledge of Objective Truth Absolute 41 own existence, was an unmitigated falsifier, if not a deliberate liar ! — which is of itself a stupendous absurdity enough, one would think, to discredit be- yond redemption any system of philosophy that assumed as m^lch, even were there nothing else to do it; and it does this for Kant's even were there nothing else to do it — which, however, to do it, there is, unfortunately, much else. And, altogether, how are the propositions that we have no knowledge of our own existence, and that the primary consciousness is an out and out falsifier, if not liar, for a starter and augury for a system of philosophy of any sense, or validity? — how, but for one that must prove the silliest of ab- surdities, or infinitely worse ? But to notice another form of Kant's putting of it, in his pressing of the matter, and as he says — "All within the sphere of our knowledge is no more than phenomenal." And isn't it? Very well, then ; but is not his own existence "within the sphere of his knowledge" ? If it is, then, accordingly, his own existence was only "phenomenal" ; it was noth- ing real; he only thought that he existed, that he did who himself had no existence to think that thought! Could anything short of drooling idiocy go much further, and not be it indeed? But the end of Kant's absurdity and bewilder- ment of mind in the matter is not even yet. For if "all within the sphere of our knowledge is no more than phenomenal," then the existence of other minds than each his own is not within the sphere of our knowledge; or else, as it is, then it is only phenome- 42 Critique of Pure Kant nal, and other minds, other human beings than each himself, have no real being, only each himself has, — or has, only that, as we have just seen, even each himself has none ! Oh ye gods ! of what profundity was the mind of Immanuel Kant ! To affect to vault somehow into a judgment-seat above consciousness and solemnly "hand down de- cisions" of its validity or of its invalidity, after the manner of a court of last resort, would be excruciat- ingly ludicrous were it not so idiotic. And yet, not only Kant, but every genuine idealist — which Kant was not — does just this thing! i Consciousness, according to Kant, only lacks intent to falsify — and with some doubt, indeed, of its lack- ing even that — that it should not itself be the ab- original and most monumental of all Ananiasesl IV Kant's Charge of the Consciousness with Being a Monumental Falsifier if not a Downright Liar And is not the cast of mind indicated in the pre- ceding chapter just the cast you might expect would impeach the validity of the primary con- sciousness? Have not I just shown that Kant did impeach it? Isn't there denial of validity in the denial of all knowledge of objective truth absolute? — in the denial even of objective truth absolute itself? Does not consciousness declare the objective truth absolute of our own existence? and again, that of our knowledge of the objective truth absolute of our own existence? And isn't then, to deny, our any knowledge of such facts or truths in effect to impeach the validity of consciousness? Then, again, there is the delivery in conscious- ness of external perception, perception external to the consciousness or conscious mind that declares it ; which, either means that there is perception, the perceptive act itself, external to the consciousness or conscious mind — which even Kant himself would say, as would his every disciple, was nonsense; or else means that there is by the mind the perceptive act, and the perception extending beyond the mind. But in either case there is delivered an external, is 46 Critique of Pure Kant delivered and declared an out, out absolute, to that namely, the consciousness or conscious mind that delivers or declares it ; and is delivered and declared that out absolute in the very delivery and declara- tion in consciousness of external perception. In other words, — even if it be to repeat, — there is deliverance, in consciousness, of external percep- tion which deliverance is, ipso facto, deliverance of an out, out absolute, of the mind; which is to say that awareness or knowledge of external perception is, ipso facto, awareness or knowledge of an out absolute; and is to say, moreover, that as that out absolute as an out absolute, as it obtains, is an ob- jective truth absolute, awareness or knowledge of an out absolute is awareness or knowledge of objec- tive truth or fact absolute and of the objective truth absolute of an out absolute of the mind. When, therefore, Kant declares knowledge of objective truth absolute impossible, which is to say knowledge of the objective truth absolute of an out absolute of the mind, is impossible, which the pri- mary consciousness delivers and declares is not only possible but actual, he simply slaps consciousness in the face with the accusation of falsifying, if not with lying? If his proposition of the impossibility of knowledge of objective truth absolute is not to the effect of impeaching its validity, what is it to the effect of? Besides, what makes the situation all the more incongruous, and Kant^s impeachment of the primary consciousness in the matter all the more amazing, and his stupidity all the more stupendous is that he Consciousness No Liar 47 has already committed himself to the fact of the existence of an out absolute of the mind, and even to our knowledge of it, in his assumption and affirmation of an outlying world absolute, 2vhich itself a world absolute involves an out abso- lute for it to obtain in, and a knowledge of which zvorld absolute involves a knowledge of that out absolute in which it obtains ! But even once more. There is not only delivery and declaration in consciousness of an out absolute of the mind, which even Kant himself in one J>reath implicitly proclaims there is, though in another most explicitly announces that he and we cannot possibly know anything of it, but there is delivery and declar- ation of the perception, very the perception of very a not-self in that out absolute of the consciousness or conscious mind's deliverance and declaration that there is, and even of Kant's wobbling affirmation that there is, and which not-self in that out absolute must itself be a thing as absolute as the out in which it is. And here, again, is not Kant accusing conscious- ness with falsifying, if not with lying ? Is not his frantically denying perception in the least of such not-self an outstanding entity, of the mind, and in- sisting that what only is perceived are ''phenomena" what are wholly within the mind, to do so, when the consciousness or conscious mind is delivering and declaring directly the contrary, and that the not-self perceived is verily an entity absolute perceived, and perceived in the out absolute of the consciousnesses deliverance and declaration in the deliverance and declaration in consciousness of external perception? 48 Critique of Pure Kant If to contend that the world of our external percep- tion is nothing more substantial than a mirage of the not-self absolute is not to do so, what, pray, would be to do it ? And now if trampling under one's feet the plain deliverances of the primary consciousness after this straight-away fashion, and to the pitch even of grounding a whole metaphysic on a defiance of them is not repudiating the validity of the primary consciousness, it would be more than interesting to know what would be. And, indeed, Kant might, or the Kantian disciple and academic after him, may twist, summersault, back and fill, and juggle with the situation as much as he will, it, yet, still comes to this, that the corner-stone to Kant's metaphysical edifice is a challenge of the validity of the primary consciousness. And be it remembered that every academic attempt at explanation how, or why, the consciousness should declare is out of the mind what is only within, is a confession that the consciousness does say out when, as it should tell the truth, it would say within; is a confession, in a word, that the consciousness falsiiies, at least, if it does not even lie. And be it remiembered, moreover, what seems quite overlooked, that, whatever the explanation, and however true it should be, it still does not do away with the fact that the consciousness falsifies. You saying the wind is east, you thinking it east, when in truth it is west, does not do away with the fact that you falsify, though it may with that of your lying. And yet, if Kant repudiated the validity of the Consciousness No Liar 49 primary consciousness, and in that repudiation, in eflfect denied all possible knowledge even of his own existence, how is it still, it might be asked, that he should yet affirm, as he did, the existence of an ex- ternal world absolute which the primary conscious- ness declares there is, but which, consistent with the invalidity of the primary consciousness as the latter declared there was such world, there should not be, and Kant should not have affirmed there was? Yes, and how is it again that he should affirm there is, when he was affirming, too, and arguing, if arguing it may be called, with all his might that "all within the sphere of our knowledge is only phenomenal"; which as were so, we could know nothing of such world, which as an outside reality is not what is phenomenal at all, and of which as not, he said we could know nothing? How is it? How ? Oh, that's only Kant's inconsistency time and time and time again on exhibition, and yet still here again, in this matter, on display ! How ? Oh, only that here as elsewhere, does he contradict himself as the exigencies of his metaphysical romancing make it convenient or imperative ! However, he still does it; still flies right in the face of consciousness to charge it with being an in- continent falsifier ; yes, and even with little less than with being a downright liar. In fact, no man ever more plainly, though perhaps more directly, accused another with at least falsifying, than does Kant ac- cuse consciousness with it. And, indeed, the very key-stone to the whole arch of the Kantian metaphysic is that we perceive go Critique of Pure Kant and know nothing of that of which it is the blazing pronouncement of the primary consciousness that we do perceive and know something. Every attempt by Kant, or by his academic idolator, to explain how what is only within the mind should still appear outside is a confession, I say again, that the consciousness declares it outside. Kant, then, contending that it is wholly within the mind, it is but a stultification of the intellect that should still insist there is no challenge by him of the validity of the primary consciousness, even if not of its sincerity. And not only Kant, but every genuine idealist — which Kant was not — impeaches the conscious- nesses validity and does it wholesale. Indeed every genuine idealist's only chance of success in his moonshine attempt of conjuring into being his gossamer universe, hinges on his doing so; and this he makes short shrift in doing from the start. Meanwhile, for Kant himself to have set up, or for his disciples after him to set up, that he was positively championing the veracity of conscious- ness is simply ridiculous; and not only that but positively intellectually nauseating, when no thinker ever lived who more flagrantly insisted on practi- cally its mendacity. But what better could you expect of a philoso- pher who so little sensed what objective truth ab- solute meant, and what knowledge of objective truth absolute meant, that he had not discernment enough to know that very his own existence — as, haply, he verily existed — was such truth ; and that Consciousness No Liar 51 very his any knowledge of his own existence — as he verily had any such — was knowledge of objec- tive truth absolute? What better could you expect of such a philosopher than this; and so his denial of all possibility of knowledge of objective truth ab- solute, altogether? Or what better again, expect of a philosopher who had not discernment enough to know that an outlying world absolute is demonstrable, and to formulate himself the demionstration thereof; who could, in fact, only guess and assume its existence, and even wavered at that ; who doubtless never had it once cross his mind that but as there was such world, world absolute, would be utterly, utterly, im- possible his, or anybody's, knowing or even being afforded so much as a hint of any other human mind's existence than just his own? What better could you expect, I say, of such a philosopher, phil- osopher as he should so style himself, or others so style him — but what a pitiful show for a philoso- pher indeed ! — than that he should charge the mind with primarily delivering falsely, and even with little better than lying? — that he should deny that the world of the mind's external perception, which the mind delivers as external to itself, is thus ex- ternal, and anything of very the external world ab- solute itself? — yes, and that he should still think that the consciousness, yet thereafter might be trusted to prove anything at all, or trusted for any knowledge at all ; should still think that it might not be as misleading when it delivered space and time as a priori intuitions as zvhen it declared that they 52 Critique of Pure Kant were external to the mind and absolute? What bet- ter, in a word, might you expect of a philosopher who beheved, or disbelieved, in the validity of the deliverances of consciousness according as the ex- igencies of his metaphysical romancing required? And, indeed, if besides what has already been said as assuring us of the existence of an outlying world absolute and of our perception, very percep- tion of very it itself, we might anticipate the com- ing, perhaps more properly, demonstrations of as much on a subsequent page, it would give the look as though Kant himself might be the falsifier, not to say liar, in the mixup rather than that it was consciousness that was — as either was; and where- fore he himself having, at the outset, at least falsi- fied, must thereafter elaborate on the prodigious scale, he did, of nearly a thousand printed pages, in the vain attempt to make the false appear the living truth; just precisely, as I have before said, as is the sad experience of the vulgar out and out liar who, having once told his witting falsehood, must needs follow it up with endless dodging and hedg- ing, and, likely, a thousand and one other straight out lies, would he keep in countenance, as we say, the first one. But nobody believes Kant a deliberate liar, and why believe it of the consciousness ? It is bad enough that he thought it the incontinent falsi- fier that he did. But what would be the unspeakably ludicrous part of it all, if it were not so astounding, is Kant's yet seeking to establish the veracity of conscious- ness, having once questioned it! Why, the man Consciousness No Liar S3 who would seek to establish the veracity of con- sciousness anyway is little better than a fool ! How are you going to establish the veracity of conscious- ness when it is only by its veracity that you are to estabHsh it? — But! as if that were not bad enough — just think of it! — just think of it! — think of first positively questioning that veracity and then expecting that on the strength of proposi- tions and rriiental processes the veracity of the in- volved consciousness of which is questioned, to es- tablish that veracity! Oh! the Copernican intellect — but forgive us Copernicus ! forgive us ! — the Copernican intellect of Immanuel Kant ! And as to what, yet that wholly of the mind and within the mind, being still perceived as out of it, it is to be said that absolutely inconceivable is any logical connection between the two, absolutely in- conceivable by any human mind. True enough, we can think of such a thing as perceiving to be out of the mind what is wholly within it, as we can think of a thousand things which we can never once think, think as realizing, and which in fact are not true. We can think of it as we can think of two and two as being five; but we cannot in the least think it, think it as realizing it, as we can think two and two as being four as real- izing that. Men are constantly mistaking what is only thinking of a thing for thinking it — as I may have remarked more than once before, and may, even, have occasion more than once to remark ag^in. Even cultivated men, men of trained minds as they 54 Critique of Pure Kant flatter themselves as being, only think of very many things they think they think, think as realizing, which they never do. And just one of those men v^as Immanuel Kant; and just one of those things v^hich he thought he thought as realizing v^as that what is of the mind and in the mind, the mind yet could deliver in consciousness as out of it ! And his inflated Critique of Pure Reason of a thousand pages largely owes its disgusting bulk to proposi- tions he indeed could think of, and doubtless thought he thought as realizing, which he in fact could not once thus think to save his life — nor anyone else. Anyway, that a purely mental event, what is wholly of the mind and within it should yet be per- ceived as out of it is absolutely incomprehensible by the human intellect. There is absolutely no logi- cal connection between the two propositions. And yet but as there were, must not Kant, as must not also every idealist, be understood to charge con- sciousness with falsifying, if not with actual lying. Consciousness is not already the content itself of two bottles, as it were, which content, the bottles be- ing knocked together and breaking, simply releases, but is the Howing of the content once that release ; the Halving, alone, being consciousness itself, consciousness in actuality, and as contradistinguished from con- sciousness only in possibility, or latent in embryo as it were, in the bottles which the knocking together and breaking of developes, or affords opportunity for development, into experiencable and recognizable reality. The Hawing were impossible before the re- lease ; and so consciousness itself in actuality impossible before. Consciousness results from the impact — the ex- citing cause — of the Absolute Reality (the Primor- dial Mental) on Itself, Itself the predisposing cause. Whether that impact with the result of consciousness is limited to the brain and nervous tissue of animal life, or whether not, no one knows or is ever likely to know,— with the probabilities, however, rather that it is not. But, anyway, consciousness whether ob- taining outside animal life, or only inside, results from an event logically and historically anticipating it, and is, therefore, in any case, itself, nothing aboriginal, noth- ing primary. It is the primary axiom of the doctrine of Evolu- tion that only that aboriginally obtains which, only as it thus obtains, can at all; and consciousness can not be understood as one of those things which, only as it aboriginally obtains, can at all, and must, there- fore, itself, be held ^o be nothing aboriginal. The consciousness or conscious mind is not finite because "made" finite; but finite because a devolopment. Consciousness is not itself an attribute of the mind any more than is reflection itself, as in a mirror, a property of the mirror ; only latent capacity for con- sciousness is an attribute of the mind, as is only latent capacity for reflection a property of the mirror. The Vanity and Farce of Academic Explanations of How What is Within the Mind is Yet Perceived as Without It I have said that any attempt at explanation how or why the consciousness delivers as out of the mind what is only within it is a confession that the former in external perception, really delivers as out of the mind what it delivers at all. And here fol- lowing are samples of such attempts as one writer- up of the history of philosophy puts it as he says — "Without the capacity of ordering the sensible objects as out of himself and out from other objects and side by side with them, there can be no percep- tion at all." "Ordering" themi out of himself! Ordering them! Ordering them out of himself! Why, for man to know of his thus ordering them out, he should be conscious of so doing; and what man, living or dead, was ever conscious of any such performance? Or, should he still be given to functioning that way, but be unconscious of it, he yet could know of it only as there was evidence, in fact or reason known to him of his doing so. And who knows of any, the least whatever? Indeed I cannot imagine a ranker dogmatic and grotesque assumption than this one of man's ^'order- ing"' sensible objects to be perceived as outside the 58 Critique of Pure Kant mind and wherefore he perceives them as outside! But now to take another writer on the history of philosophy who makes the same attempt of the one just quoted, to explain from the standpoint of the Kantian mietaphysic how or why the conscious- ness proves an incontinent falsifier if not an outright Ananias ; to take another as he says, — "The rea- son an object seems to be external and independent is simply this: that the act by which, in external perception, the Ego constitutes the object is not in itself a reflective and self-comprehending act, but is directed only toward the result, the percept, and another act is needed to reveal it to itself and its real source. In the absence of this second reflective act, therefore, it looks upon itself as necessarily de- termined by an external power, instead of being, as it is, a free creation." Now isn't that explanation brilliant? Let us see how brilliant. In the first place he says, "the act by which the Ego constitutes the object," — what? the Ego con- stitutes the object by an act! By what act? This is a curiosity to begin with. But then, he continues — "it is not a reflective act," and "another act is needed to reveal it to itself" which another he de- scribes as "a second reflective act," which if a second reflective act makes the original act itself a Urst reflective one which he has just said, however, is ''not a reflective act." So here you have a flat contradiction, for a next thing. But he goes on to say that "in the absence of the second reflective act, therefore, it — the first and ''not reflective act" — "looks upon itself as necessarily determined," etc., Parce of Academic Explanations 59 etc. But the first or original act he has just said, I repeat, is "not reflective," and if not reflective then it is without thought. And how can that, without thought, how can that which does not think, still look upon itself to think itself "as necessarily deter- mined," etc., etc.? — how can that think a particu- lar thing which does not think at all! So here, again, flat contradiction. And is that any less than jargon and nonsense which is freighted with contradiction after contradiction? But, besides, what are these declarations of the Ego constituting the object by an act, of the act not a reflective one, of another act, a reflective one, being needed to re- veal the first one to itself, of yet the absence of the former and of its therefore looking upon itself as necessarily determined by an external power, — what are these but a series of dogmatic assumptions — nothing better ? What is there in fact or reason in their support? But now in how great contrast, let me point out, with the above in reasonableness and intelligibility, is the explanation as sensible objects are indeed out of the mind as the primary consciousness delivers them as being. Take for illustration, visual light. Imagine an ether vibration entering the eye and passing on to the brain, setting up within the visual cerebral area as it is called, a cerebral agitation vibratory or other, and with the result of visual light, as also with the correlated result of its resurgence in opposite direc- tion as in the event of two waves meeting. Now why the light in the moment of the attention being 6o Critique of Pure Kant directed outwards is seen to be outside the mind and even the brain, is because the resurgent ether vibration, on which rides as it were and rides out- ward the resurgent light, is itself, (that resurgent ether vibration) outside the mind and brain; outside the latter still even when within the brain's periph- ery; outside as the water in a sponge is still outside the sponge's texture though yet within the sponge's periphery. What could be a more reasonable and intelligible view and explanation than this? What a more reasonable and intelligible view than that which is outside should be seen as outside ? And then, on the other hand, let us add why, in the moment of the attention being directed imuard, the resultant of this collision of ether and cerebral vibrations is realized as being within the mind, and of the mind as I or Ego and percipient perceiving the outlying light, is because the resurgent agita- tional movement vibratory or other, on which rides, as it were, and rides inward, the inward resurgence of that resultant, a movement vibratory or other, is of the very Hhres of very the brain itself, and of the mind itself as allied with brain. And here again, could any better explanation possibly be afforded why? — any plainer or more sensible ? Could anything be more rational or read- ily understood than that what is of the brain and within it and within the mind, the mind as identi- fied with brain, should be felt to be of the mind and the perceiving percipient? — as well as that what is outside brain, and mind, and perceived, should be realized as outside? Farce of Academic Explanations 6i Altogether, the above academic attempts noted, in explication of how the consciousness should de- liver as out of the mind what is only within it are futile and farcical in the extreme, as must prove to be all such. And indeed and finally, it is but simply meta- physical suicide for any metaphysical theory that it must needs immolate on its altar the veracity of the primary consciousness to start with; that it must needs, in the very beginning, charge the latter with duplicity even but in effect, whether in intent or not. But just this was found the necessity of Kant's system of metaphysic, and its suicide followed, as inevitably it must, at the very threshold of that metaphysic's exploitation. Consciousness may obtain as often as ever there is impact of the Absolute Reality on Itself,— or it may not; only, as the former is the case, then it obtains cos'mically, and our consciousness is one with that of the cosmos or universe, our brain as brain, merely functioning neither as the origin of our consciousness, nor even of its content, at all but only as determm- ing its content such as it is; or then, as still the former should not be the ca . se, and the latter should be, and consciousness should obtain only in the event of ani- mal life, then our brain as brain functions as the sprmg both of our consciousness itself, as also of its content at all, and of its content altogether; altogether, that is. both of its content at all, and of its content jmcA as that is;— the former though, and that conscious- ness obtains as often as there is that impact, be it said, being, perhaps the more likely. It is only because the consciousness is but a de- velopment and an aftermath and nothing aboriginal and primary that it does not directly reveal, which is to say that the mind does not directly know every- thing, or the universe of Being exhaustively. It is only because the consciousness is but a development and an aftermath and nothing aboriginal and primary, and has eyes only for a look forward and not for a look behind, as only for the former have yours and mine, that it reveals, that the mind knows, nothing of what is behind it save only as what as behind as extension, figure, and resistance is brought round, as it were, and thrust objectively before the mind, and when then and only then, is revealed and known thus much at least of what is behind, even though noth- ing more. VI Primary Demonstration of an External World Absolute But now, supposing that Kant, instead of re- pudiating the validity of consciousness, repudiating it except in such instances as it suited his whim, or the exigencies of his speculations to recognize it, had credited it with veracity, he would then, in the first place, have believed in such a thing as objective truth absolute, and in his possible knowledge of it ; and in such a thing as the possible objective truth absolute of his own existence as also his possible knowledge of it ; believed that, possibly, he himself existed, as also that, possibly, he knew he really did. In the next place he would have said to himself that, as the consciousness, besides declaring that he himself really existed, declared also an out of him, and a not-him, and that not-him in that out of him, and that that not-him, in that out of him, itself, very itself be perceived, the presumption is not only that he himself really existed, and knew it, but that there is really an out of him and that in that out of him there was really a world absolute external to him- self, and that that world itself, very itself he per- ceived. 66 Critique of Pure Kant Then, having said to himself, or recognized this much, he would have sought to demonstrate how things are as they appear rather than how they are not as they appear, which latter is the whole burden, primarily, of his Critique of the Pure Reason to demonstrate. And then suppose further that, not content with any mere presumption in the matter, and to the end of a demonstration, he had recognized that it was only with the very most primary facts of conscious- ness, and with these as such facts simply, he had primarily to labor, and that only yet as quite all these were recognized and labored with, and most particularly the one he actually either overlooked or ignored, the one, namely, of our recognition of the existence of a plurality of minds and their experi- ence, might all demonstration fail, then he would, as he had been capable of reasoning and not simply romancing, have argued with himself much in this wise: — I have no direct consciousness of other minds than my own ; but here within my sensuous experi- ence are all the physical signs conceivable as should there be another and other minds, all, indeed, that should logically warrant the conviction of there being others. For, it is inconceivable that I should be exercised with so much as a hint even, much less with a most unwavering conviction, of there being another or other minds, in the absence of all such signs. It is equally inconceivable that there should be present them all, even what would appear an ex- \ Demonstration of External World Absolute 67 haustive presentation of such, and with not one to the contrary, and still there not be another or other minds active behind them. There is, first, within my sensuous experience the perception of other physical forms like unto my own, which of itself is highly suggestive of other minds, minds like my own, within those like physical forms. But there, again, within that same sensuous experience is an interchange of active physical signs such as might be those of my own mind in actual indirect com- munication with another or other minds. So that, altogether, it is positively inconceivable that there should not be, is even utterly ridiculous to entertain a doubt that there are in very fact, other minds than my own, and with which I am in daily communica- tion. But now, again, this what I recognize as the physical of the signs in question only in virtue of which have thus suggested to me, and even afforded me assurance of the existence of another or other minds than my own, must either be something per- ceived by us in common, or be, at least, something with which in common, that of our independent perceptions is allied; otherwise, another's manipu- lation of his physical world, I should know nothing about, and my manipulation of my physical world he would know nothing about, and all tokens of each other's existence be absent. Evidently, then, the physical cannot possibly be the former, if that something be only mental phe- nomena [Kant's "phenoms 70 Critique of Pure Kant access to, could have no knowledge of its contents, and so none of its physical which it might be manipu- lating, and so none, again, of its manipulation of its physical, and so, still again, as none of its manipula- tion on which I am wholly dependent for indication of its existence, then none whatever of its existence. Therefore, I could have no knowledge of another or other mind's existence save only as the physical was not simple "phenomena" but something in part or altogether outside the mind and absolute; and as I do have knowledge of the existence of other minds and their experience, therefore, again, there is an outlying world absolute what I recognize as a physical such world. Or, then, again, Kant having assumed the same fact, might have gone ahead and reasoned in regard to space and time in much the following fashion: — It is inconceivable, since men have no direct consciousness one mind of another, that there should be unanimity of attestation among them as to the particular time and place of objects and events, save only as the time and place with which they are identified, were things entirely outside the several minds involved, and were things absolute; therefore, what only, is conceivable, at least, is that space and time are things thus outside and absolute. Of course, these deductions are worthless, if for nothing else than that the one leading premise with which the reasoning sets out is but an unsupported assumption, and itself worthless to reason from. Demonstration of External World Absolute 71 But the wonder is that the mind that should have assumed where there was no logical business to, should not have kept on and come to the truth even if it were to have no better foundation than sand or air to rest on. \ V Must ever be borne in mind the distinction be- tween the external universe and the manifest uni- verse- the former being the universe external to our minds, and the latter the universe including our mmds; and ever the distinction again between the universe external to man's mind, and the universe external to the man himself, which includes not only his mind but his body and brain as well. By the external world Kant affirmed to exist is meant always the former, the world external to man's mind. We never come so near the Absolute Reality, cer- tainly never so primarily and directly near, as we do in sensuous experience — never. No thinking can bring us so near. Thinking, possibly, may bring us nearer the any cosmic or universal consciousness, should there be any, as is likely there is, but which yet, re- member, is but a development and an aftermath; but not bring us nearer the Final or Absolute Reality Itself. VII Second and Physical Demonstration of an External World Absolute But now to return to what we have found to be altogether the presumption in the matter of the ex- istence of an external world absolute, and of which the most positive demonstration is to be afforded also, as we have shown, — to return to that, and I say that had Kant not scouted the primary dictum of the consciousness; and again, had he but recog- nized our recognition of a plurality of minds, one of the three primary facts of consciousness, and which he had neglected or overlooked, he had not need to have assumed what, before demonstrated, he had no metaphysical business to, and assumed an outlying world absolute; no more business to assume one of other minds than his own than he had to assume one of what we recognize as the physi- cal. On the contrary, he might have done as only he should have done, and what only a philosopher worthy of the name would do, namely, have demonstrated at the outset the twofold world of other minds than his own, and of what, if not the world of our external perception itself, is world at least with that allied. But now, yet that I have said that recognition of the one of the three primary facts of conscious- 76 Critique of Pure Kant ness, hitherto either overl(x>ked or neglected, af- forded the only primary demonstration of the ex- istence of an external world absolute, it still does not afford the only demonstration as there are at least two others to be marshalled in confirmation of the one more primary, meantime that is not to be lost sight of, what is the presumption altogether in the matter in advance of all positive proof. One of these two others is even a physical demonstration of an external world absolute. It is not often that we can command physical demonstra- tion of a metaphysical fact. But here we can ; and here it is as we summon to the stand the photogra- pher's art to testify in the matter. And what is the camera's testimony? Why, we have its unimpeach- able word for it that there is an outlying world ab- solute most assuredly; else would be absolutely impossible the transcription of scene, or of anything whatsoever, to the sensitive plate. For, of course, the camera has no access to the human mind and can know nothing, therefore, of Kant's ''phenome- na"; nothing of the any effects or impressions an external world absolute, should there be any such, may make on the mind. It can take cognizance of nothing of that sort, and must transfer to the sensi- tive plate, only the "God of things as they are," in- dependent of our minds — or transfer nothing. And "the God of things as they are," is as they are independent of our minds. Either it must transfer what we see, something of it at least, in which case what we see, something of it at least, is free of any constructive action of the mind, and is outside the Physical Demonstration of Such World JJ mind, and thing such as it is in itself, and very the outlying world absolute; or it must transfer what is behind what we see, and upon which, once the transcription to the sensitive plate, our minds put the same construction as upon the original before the transcription. But, in either case, is involved an outstanding reality absolute transferred; in either case, involved an external world absolute; in either case, we have demonstration of the most solid and unquestionable sort of such world, as solid and un- questionable as anything in Euclid of Euclid's most obvious and indisputable propositions. Indeed, we might have produced this proof, this physical proof, to start with, of an external world absolute, and rested the matter then and there considering all other evidence as no better than altogether superflu- ous. But now yet, we have even still a third demon- stration of an external world absolute to offer, but only incidentally to appear as we proceed to demon- strate the perception, very the perception of such world, perception of very it itself, which perception of such world, as we demonstrate, we demonstrate, of course, by implication, incidentally its existence. But before proceeding to this, let us first ask — Why did not Kant himself demonstrate its existence, instead, practically, of rankly and baldly afiirming it ? Why did he not but that simply he did not know how to? And yet, as would appear, he was not quite at ease with rank affirmation; or at least not quite so in respect of a world physical as it would appear to be, even if quite so in respect of one of a 78 Critique of Pure Kant plurality of minds. And so, to reassure himself, he made some feint as would he afford a semblance of having reasoned the matter out. But, oh! the travesty of all reasoning it is ! Oh, the travesty of all reasoning! We have sensations, and how shall we account for them, as it would seem, he ques- tioned with himself. How should we have a ruffled sea, but for an outside wind to ruffle it ; and how a ruffled mind but for an external world to ruffle that ? Ergo, Kant seems to have reasoned, — heavens, reasoned! — then there is an outside world to ruffle the mind. Great dialectician, Kant! Great! Here are what are for him, to make, four pure, assumptions, namely, (i) that the sensations are not spontaneous; (2) that there is an external world absolute; (3) that the mind is ruffled; and (4) that it is the external world absolute that ruffles it; — four assumptions in support of not one of which had he — whatever anyone else may have, or not have — one single substantial fact, or one solid war- rant in reason to offer — not one. There is, certainly, nothing "given" in the sensa- tions that they are not spontaneous — as everybody should know, and he himself knew. And even were there an outside world absolute, he never demon- strated its existence and so could never know any logical connection between it and the sensations. Nevertheless, it is only out of what is all this ab- sence of certain data, and of correlation of data, from which to reason, that Kant conjures, as out of a vacuum, his justification of himself in assuming an external world absolute! Physical Demonstration of Such World 79 Meanwhile his eyes were either wilfully shut fast, or he was involuntarily blind, to the one most primary trump card that could score him definite knowledge in the matter, namely, that of a pri- mary fact of consciousness, fact of our recognition of the existence of a plurality of minds with their experience; and again, either ignorantly or wilfully blind to the more secondary such card, secondary yet only so in logical order, but one otherwise which as physical is the one par excellence and competent to take the opponent in the game's whole hand, and even, as one might say, the whole pack of cards out of the game as well as in. And so Kant, having, perhaps, affected at least to demonstrate such world, but really failing alto- gether of doing so, has still the hardihood of as- suming and affirming its veritable existence; and this, too, yet that little better than charging con- sciousness with being a monumental liar in its deliv- erance of our very perception of such world. But what business had Kant, in logic or reason, still to assume and affirm an external world abso- lute; and particularly what business had he to as- sume and affirm one as obtaining under the utterly inconceivable condition of its obtaining in the ab- sence of all space to obtain in, as he did ? Besides, the funny thing about it is that he ex- pects you to imagine it to obtain in the absence of the very thing, he said himself, you could not think the absence of! the very thing, he said himself, you could not think azvay! Mind you, he never con- tended that this outlying world absolute, which, he 8o Critique of Pure Kant said, we don't perceive, is in the space he prestidig- itatured a priori intuition into being for us to perceive the external world in which he said we do perceive. Rather, we are called upon to un- derstand that the external world absolute of his assumption and affirmation obtains neither in the a priori intuition space of his conjuring into being, nor in space outlying and absolute. In a word, we are called upon to think a world exists in what is to be thought absent which yet, he says, you cannot think absent, cannot think away! ! ! Great is Immanuel Kant! Great! That he should do this, is quite enough of itself and alone to utterly condemn him as a philosopher. And I ask, again, and would a thousand times, for I know the infinite significance there is to the query — What business had Kant, anyway, in logic or rea- son to assume and affirm an external world abso- lute ; but then, particularly, to assume and affirm one under utterly inconceivable conditions, even under what he himself said were such? And yet it ^yas his dilemma that he had to, as his a priori intuition were to have any excuse for being. He had to, since, with outlying space absolute, there could be no such excuse. It was his dilemma that he had to, or give his whole case away, give, in fact, him- self away. But that he had to assume and affirm an external world absolute assumed to obtain under the inconceivable condition of its existence in what was to be thought away, what, he said himself, could not be thought away, is of itself and alone enoug-h utterly to condemn his philosophy, as is that he did Physical Demonstration of Such World 8i assume and affirm as much, to utterly condemn him himself as a philosopher. One has but to realize this to know of a certainty that his philosophy is at last to go to the junk heap, and himself left standing but a pitiful figure in the history of metaphysics. I Take a cube of anything, say of wood, and tie a string to it and whirl it swiftly round and round; it will look to be a ring. The philosophy of what you fail to see, and of why you fail to, is the philosophy of external perception, as it is an illusion, in a nutshell. Do not forget for a moment that with most abso- lutely certain an external world absolute, and with most absolutely certain the conscious mind declaring the perception of a world external to itself, the pre- sumption, the well-nigh infinite presumption is that the mind does perceive such world. So that when Kant butts in to establish his world of "phenomena," and our external perception as perception of only such world, he does it in defiance of a well-nigh infinite pre- sumption to the contrary. VIII Demonstration of the Perception of the External Physical World Absolute and Incidental Third Demonstration of Its Existence I have said that we have yet a third demonstra- tion of the existence of an external w^orld absolute, v^orld absolute as it is physical at least, but one pri- marily of its perception, and only incidentally of its existence; and yet necessarily incidentally of that since its perception involves its existence. Of course, it does not of necessity follow from the simple fact of such a world that we should per- ceive it, or know anything of its nature. But with the absolute certainty of its existence, joined with the most explicit deliverance of the consciousness of the perception of a world as external to the mind, which deliverance no one disputes, necessarily fol- lows the presumption, the infinite presumption, that the mind perceives the external world absolute that we know to exist. We have, then, do not forget, the infinite presumption to start with that we per- ceive the external world absolute, as well as that it exists. So that, when Kant butts in to deny per- ception of that world, he is up against the infinite presumption of his stupendous error. But now if we were to employ a figure, we should say that, to Kant's view, mind was a pane of glass 86 Critique of Pure Kant smashed by a flying brick, which, the pane of glass, supposing it conscious, knows everything of its be- ing smashed, but nothing of the flying brick in the instant of the glass's destruction ; knows of the pres- sure of the brick on itself, the glass, in the instant of the brick's crashing through, but has no sense, in the same instant, of thing pressing! — and this, too, in spite of the fact that there is in the consciousness, as it were, of the pane of glass, no immediate de- liverance of its being smashed, and only, only im- mediate deliverance of perception of the flying brick! Or, dropping metaphor, the mind, as Kant would have it, knows everything of its being acted on by the outlying world absolute, but nothing of the world which acts on it; knows of the effects wrought or impression made on it of that world in the instant of the effects wrought or impression be- ing made, but knows, in the same instant of know- ing these, nothing of that bringing these mental phenomena to pass — and this, notwithstanding the fact that there is in the consciousness no immediate deliverance of the mind's being acted on, and only immediate deliverance of the cognition of the world which a<:ts on it! But, really, the notion of the mind being acted on of the external world absolute is only an aca- demic after-thought. And then, again, only an academic after-thought is it that that action, or action's effects, should be perceived, and not, in the same instant, be perceived that world itself then acting, that world itself as something at least, if not anything more definite, ' Demonstration of Its Perception 87 thus acting on the mind. The notion of its not be- ing perceived is a notion think-o/-able, but still not in the least thinkable, thinkable as realizable. It certainly is nothing self-evident, that is, think- able as realizable, that that thus acting is not per- ceived, even though it were nothing self evident that it is; while there is not one assured fact, nor one valid reason to sustain the assumption that it is not. It most certainly could not be argued that the in- cognizable nature of that world would forbid such perception for nothing positive, of a certainty, of that world's nature is known beyond its mechani- cality; or nothing at least as sensuously />^rceived, and only something as rationally conceived, and the latter nothing that should be understood as incog- nizable. Neither could it be argued that any such as effects on the mind by that world would, like a dust raised, preclude the perception of it, for, as must be understood, in the event of any such effects, there would be. in the moment of them, two objects almost simultaneously before the mind; one the ef- fects as object, that object perceived as within the mind; and the other the outlying world absolute provoking those effects as object, that object per- ceived as out of the mind. Almost simultaneously but not quite, of course, since, in both logical and historical order, the latter comes first before the mind, and the former only after ; and so, of course, must come the perception of the external world ab- solute itself first, as there was to be perception of it at all, before that of its any effects, as there were any such effects at all, which, themselves as object 88 Critique of Pure Kant coming only after, could not preclude altogether at the outset the perception of the absolute object itself which came before, yet, too, that, being followed so close by perception of effects as object, conscious perception of the former should be indistinguishable from that of the latter, and be overborne by it. Moreover, and still again, it could not be said that the external world absolute, because not being perceived for such altogether as it is in itself, there- fore it, nothing of it, is being perceived. That is, it could not be said that, because we do not perceive what distinguishes a thing from another as well as what does not thus distinguish it, therefore we do not perceive what does not distinguish it; that be- cause what only we perceive of a thing is what is common with another, or even with everything else of our perception, therefore do we see nothing at all of that thing. All of which would be like arguing that an object which, because of its distance, I could not realize whether it be tree, horse, or man, there- fore I cannot be seeing the tree horse, or man, whichever it is, at all ; that because I cannot be see- ing the whichever it is as the whichever it is, there- fore I cannot be seeing it at all — cannot be seeing even anything at all! Altogether, then, considering that effects or im- pressions made on the mind by the external world absolute must, as object, be object perceived as with- in the mind where they are; and that the external world absolute must, as object perceived, be per- ceived as external to the mind where it is, yet that conscious perception of it be later over- Demonstration of Its Perception 89 ridden and obscured by perception of effects or im- pressions as object, as there were any such; and considering that effects or impressions on the mind are nothing "given" in external perception, much less "given" as being perceived, while what is "given" therein is a consciousness of a world ex- ternal to the mind, — the only logical conclusion, as well as was the infinite presumption, is that there is, at least, perception of that world absolute, per- ception of it, very it itself, whether of its any possi- ble effects or impressions on the mind, or not. That is, the presumption, and as well, too, the logical inference from the facts, is that the external world absolute is perceived unless, as I keep repeat- ing, consciousness be the altogether consummate falsifier, not to say downright liar, that Kant and the academic brethren the world over would have it that it is. But the consciousness, very indeed, is not that inveterate falsifier, not to say downright liar; is not even that falsifier, or not more that, at least, than from the mind's finiteness it is compelled to be, which is not to say that, from this cause, it is at all ; and no one has ever yet showed, and as before was noted, that, from this cause, it must needs perceive nothing of the external world absolute; nor again that it must yet report that object which is only within the mind to be still outside it. Anything to the contrary, then of very percep- tion of very the external world absolute is not to be entertained until as much is proven ; the burden of proof in the matter resting, not with who would iili 90 Critique of Pure Kant affirm such perception and knowledge and the veracity of consciousness, but with who would in- sist otherwise, and charge consciousness with men- dacity. And as Kant insisted on the contrary, the burden of proof of the contrary rested with him at least, even if, besides, with the whole academic world. But now let us see what can be offered in the way of a positive demonstration in support of this infinite presumption, as I have declared it be, of our perception of the external world absolute we must know to exist. Of course, as I have already said, it does not necessarily follow from the simple fact of such world that we should perceive it, or know anything of its nature ; but it does necessarily follow from our being able to demonstrate its existence that we should be in conscious touch with it, either directly, or indirectly; follow that, in that demonstration, would be being realized our perception and knowl- edge either of it itself, or of its effects on us; and which is to say, as said above, only in other words, that we should be in conscious touch with it either directly, or indirectly. Kant said touch with it only indirectly ; that is, in touch directly only with mental phenomena, themselves as it were a dust kicked up by the action of that world on the mind, and oc- cluding perception of that world itself, and leaving only the dust or mental phenomena to receive cog- nition. And our primary demonstration of such world did not dispute this, as it was one that in no wise involved conscious relation directly with that Demonstration of Its Perception 91 world, yet that most assuredly it did involve as much with it indirectly. But this, now, our demonstration of the per- ception of such world, and incidentally a third such of its existence, involves, it will be found, conscious touch with it directly. And here is the demonstra- tion as follows. Thus we have no experience, or knowledge, of mind being ever once conscious but as primarily it is so only as it is first in the presence of objects, ob- jects of an external world absolute as it would ap- pear to be, and which objects or external world absolute in awakening consciousness, awakens per- ception of those objects and that world. And what is the nature of those objects and that world which are the cause, the exciting cause at least, of con- sciousness, and of our perception of them, as it would appear? Why, mechanical anyway, what- ever more they or it may be. Surely are not exten- sion, figure, resistance, motion, which we perceive in external perception all mechanical ? It is what is the mechanical, then, whether or not anything more, which, as would appear, is the cause or, in medical parlance, the exciting cause at least, of conscious- ness, and of our perception of extension, figure, and so on. It is that that is the positive and exciting cause even if not, and most likely not, the predis- posing (medical parlance again) cause also, and cause altogether of it. It is the exciting cause and that, only for which, however strenuous the predis- posing cause, would consciousness ever obtain at all, so far as we know. That is, prior to the action, g2 Critique of Pure Kant action as it is said to be, of external objects or the external world, on the mind, only capacity — and hardly that — potential or latent, obtains, and not consciousness itself at all that obtains ; the same as, prior to its disturbance from without, motionless water, at a temperature of 31 degrees or lower, is only a predisposition, only a capacity — and hardly that— potential or latent, for being ice, but is not ice itself; or the same, again, as the egg, prior to being the subject of an increase of temperature, is only a predisposition, only a latent or potential capacity, and hardly that, for becoming a chick, but is not already the chick itself. I say hardly that, for were the capacity, in respect, say, of the chick, fully such, we would have the chick already arrived, without the adjuvant of increased warmth to enable it to become such ; but which as it could never become but for that rise in temperature, the latter is something needed that full capacity altogether obtain, and the actual chick realized. However, as would appear, once the mechanical, as exciting cause, is brought to bear on the mind, — on the mind as is said — then we have conscious- ness and perception of what would appear to be ab- solute external objects — that is, we are brought in touch with such directly. This all is only as would appear; but it is proposed, actually to demonstrate the apppearance and the more cursory and vulgar observation, to be reality; actually to demonstrate that what is at least mechanical, whatever more it is, is such cause; and again that it is the mechanical and objective reality outside the mind and absolute Demonstration of Its Perception 93 I that is such, and which we, as perceiving, veritably perceive what is outside and absolute, and what is the external world absolute. And the demonstration is in this: that it is, as science makes known to us, to what is only mechani- cal change that is due a change of consciousness (that is, of its content) as when only to a change of wave-lengths and of frequency of wave impulses — themselves, as also the change itself, what are only mechanical — is due a change of consciousness from a consciousness, say of red, to a consciousness of green, or other color; and that therefore, prima facie, if to what is only a mechanical change is due a change of consciousness, that is, a change of its content, then to what is simply the mechanical minus the change, that is, to what is the mechanical in statu quo, as the exciting cause, is due content at all; and due, as we know consciousness only as with content, very consciousness itself, due consciousness itself at all, I repeat, that is here demonstrated that to the mechanical itself in statu quo, as exciting cause, is due content of consciousness at all, is due conscious- ness itself at all ; what accords with what I said in the beginning, was the more cursory or vulgar ob- servation in the matter, namely, that the world of our external perception, the objects of which are mechanical of form, is the exciting cause at least, of consciousness and of our perception of those ob- jects of that world. But here to stop a moment just to note the tre- mendous significance of this demonstration that to 94 Critique of Pure Kant the mechanical, and the mechanical impact on the mind — on the mind as would appear — is due the contents of consciousness, is due very consciousness itself, in a word. That significance is that in the Aboriginal and Absolute Reality, in the beginning, so to speak, there does not inhere consciousness itself but only the latent capacity for it; does not inhere consciousness in actuality but only in possihility^ only as latent, only as in embryo as it were, which only a subsequent event, the subsequent event of im- pact of the mechanical on that Aboriginal and Abso- lute Reality, transmutes into consciousness in actu- ality. In brief that significance is even the actual demonstration, yes, the most absolutely incontestible demonstration that the consciousness or conscious mind is nothing primary; that it has no being in actu- ality, in the beginning; yes, and note well, that the concept, too, as being thought, which can obtain only with the event of consciousness, can itself be nothing primary; can itself have no being in the beginning — and which, that it cannot, is a complete explosion of Kant's leading contention. But now to return to what I was saying. I was saying that is here demonstrated that to the mechani- cal itself in statu quo, as exciting cause, is due con- tent of consciousness at all, is due indeed conscious- ness itself, at all. But now is in order to demon- strate — if to articulate the self-evidency of a self- evident proposition is to demonstrate it — that this mechanical, as the exciting cause of consciousness, and which itself, in external perception, we per- ceive, cannot be a mere precept , a mere subjective Demonstration of Its Perception 95 event or phenomenon, as Kant would be understood to affirm it to be, in objective disguise; cannot be a mere phantom of the mind, and only be a thought as being thought; but must be, on the contrary, an objective thing absolute and reality outside the mind altogether, and be what is in itself such as appears, and what, moreover, with whatever more it is, is thought as not being thought, that is, is what is un- being-thought thought as a locomotive, or any ma- chine, is unbeing-thought thought, and which, we in perceiving, it must be an outlying world absolute, and the outlying world absolute that we perceive. It is now in order, I say, to make evident that mechanicality as a mere percept cannot possibly be the any cause whatever of consciousness. And this would seem easy enough since everyone can but understand that what itself involves or obtains only in virtue of involving consciousness could not itself be obtaining in advance of that in advance of which it must obtain to be cause; that is, mechanicality as a mere percept, obtaining only in virtue of involv- ing consciousness as it does, could not be itself ob- taining in advance of that only in advance of which as it did obtain could it be conscious- nesses cause, and so is not such cause. Only mechanicality, then, as void of consciousness, which is to say as not being thought and as outlying con- sciousness, can be. Consciousness itself the cause of consciousness, is an impossibility and an absurdity as all will un- derstand and no one dispute. Manifestly the only way out of this impasse and 96 Critique of Pure Kant rankest incongruity possible, that something of con- sciousness is the cause of consciousness, is to back out; and to understand that the mechanicaUty in question is not a percept at all, nothing involving consciousness at all, but something lying outside all mind and consciousness, and absolute. But now again, it is utterly inconceivable as pos- sible that there should be mechanicality of outline absolute, that is, that there should be right-line, angle, or curve absolute, but as it should be mechani- cality of outline absolute, be right-line, angle, or curve absolute, of something, something, as it were substance itself absolute, something as of body itself absolute. Nay, to put it even stronger — and note well the distinction — it is even positively con- ceivable that it is absolutely impossible that there should be outlying mechanicality of outline absolute, be right-line, angle, or curve absolute, but as it was the outlying mechanicality of outline absolute, was right-line, angle, or curve absolute, of something itself absolute, something as body itself ab- solute such as connoted by resistance, itself in turn connoting such as quantity, quality and so on; positively conceivable I say, as infinitely im- possible ; and what is positively conceivable as in- finitely impossible is impossible, as goes anything as such as thus conceivable by the human mind to be so. Outlying mechanicality of outline absolute, and what we understand as body connoted by re- sistance, are linked fast in indissoluble embrace, as are curvilinear plane and its two surfaces. As you could not demonstrate such plane but as you did Demonstration of Its Perception 97 its two surfaces, or, vice versa, so you can not demonstrate such as outlying right-line absolute but as you do something substance as it were, outlying and absolute of which such as the outlying right- line absolute is the outlying right-line absolute of; and vice versa, but as you do something what is connoted by resistance which itself in turn connotes in a way, quantity, quality, and so on. Moreover, no more than could there be outly- ing right-line absolute but as there was outlying something, substance as it were, absolute, which the outlying right-line absolute was the outlying right- line absolute of, could there be perception of the fomner but as there was perception of the latter. And this would be saying that, as is made incon- testably certain perception of mechanicality of out- line absolute, is made so species of a somewhat the genera of which are of the sort of Kant's categori- cals ; which species, therefore, themselves are as much objects of sense and outlying the mind and absolute and what are primarily experienced rather than primarily thought, as are space and time, or exten- sion and figure, — Kant to the contrary notwith- standing. So, here I have demonstrated that our external perception is perception of the external world abso- lute itself, very perception of very it itself the ex- ternal world absolute, by demonstrating (i) first that the mechanicality we perceive in external per- ception is the exciting cause of consciousness, (2) and again, that that mechanicality is no mere per- cept what lies inside the mind, but is what must lie 98 Critique of Pure Kant outside the mind altogether, and (3) still again, that that mechanicality of outline absolute must be mechanicality of outline of something, something as it were substance or body, itself outside the mind and absolute. And now, finally, it will be noticed that, having demonstrated our perception of the external world absolute we have also, the existence of such world; for how could there be perception of such except as it had an existence? And thus at last we have established with cer- tainty, first from the primary facts of consciousness, with particular emphasis laid on that one, of the three, of our recognition of the existence of other minds than each of itself alone, that there is a two fold external world absolute; and then confirmed it first by an independent physical demonstration abso- lutely incontestable; and again done so incidentally as we demonstrated our perception of such a world. And this, altogether, practically amounts to what are three distinct demonstrations of an external world absolute. It was the crucial despair of Kant to realize how what there was sensuous experience of in the sensu- ous experience of space, the idea concept or a priori intuition of was no experience of at all and so could be no contribution to. It was his crucial despair to un- derstand how what, on the mountaintop, there was experience of as there was experience of the purity, exhilaration, and benefit of the mountain air, and which experience kept up should have saved him from dying of tuberculosis, an idea, concept, or a priori intuition of, as he was come down into the valley again, is nothing an experience of at all, and nothing that could save him from dying of that di- sease just the same and as soon as were the idea, concept, or a priori intuition, never once in his con- sciousness, or had he never been on the mountain- top. Hence the fatal miscarriage of his philosophical exploitation, and why a thousand years from now he, as a philosopher, shall be but a memory, and his phil- osophy a by-word. , I Kant gives rank to conceptual mind which cannot define life because it cannot realize life, oyer ex- periential or perceptual mind which realizes it though cannot define it! But with what reason? — or, rather, want of reason! Certain "innate a priori forms," conceptions or what not, are no more necessary conditions of cog- nition, no more a subjective necessity of it, than they are of a glass mirror that that should cognosce, as it were, objects in order to reflect them. Latent capacity for a hole in the mud may be necessary for there to be a hole in it once a bullet is dropped into it; but that there must first be a hole in it in anticipation of a bullet being dropped into it in order that there should be a hole in it once a bullet is dropped into it is both Kantian and academic rubbish. IX Demonstration of Space and Time as External And Absolute But now, with most absolutely certain an ex- ternal world absolute, and with most absolutely cer- tain our perception of it, perception of very it itself, what becomes of Kant's "phenomena,'' phenomena of space and time as "forms of the sensibility," or "forms of perception" ? And what, again, of these forms as being, pri- marily, of a priori intuition? And what of his our a priori intuition, anyzvayf Well, his "phenomena," and his our a priori in- tuition are, as it were, swallowed up of oblivion; there is not a vestige of them left more than had they never existed, — which, that they in reality "ever had," except in the perverted and exuberant fancy of Immanuel Kant, is the fact in the matter? In short, the whole Kantian metaphysic is exploded, it is a complete wreck, it is annihilated : and no more need be said about it. No more, for, that we perceive nothing of an external world absolute, and that space and time with their contents are nothing external to the mind, and absolute, are, from one point of view at least. I02 Critique of Pure Kant the very corner-stone of the whole Kantian meta- physical ediiice, which undermined, and the entire superstructure tumbles in a heap ; the bubble of it is burst; and the monstrosity of it exposed beyond even \niinite power to recall its original disguise of normality and respectability. But how, then, not only false but silly becomes all this chatter about space and time, being in us rather than we in space and time ! How not only false but silly this claim of Kant's that space and time are either a priori intuition, or things of a priori intuition (and which is it according to Kant?) and such as antecedent to all experience, still that ob- taining "only because of experience"! And how not only false but silly his dictum that space and time are but forms of the sensibility ! — but forms of perception ! I have said, no more need be said about it ; that is, no more if men only had insight enough to real- ize the significance of some things, short of a more elaborate statement of them. For, plainly enough, as to space and time, there being veritably an ex- ternal world absolute, and there obtaining veritably our perception of it, then since, as would no one dis- pute, our external perception of things is perception of them only as in space and time, our any perception of that world must be perception of it, too, as in space and time ; which world itself being outside the mind and absolute, the space and time in which we perceive it must themselves be; must themselves be outside and independent, not inside and contingent ; outside as ideas in the concrete and as not being thought. Demonstration of Space and Time Absolute 103 not inside and dependent; outside, as ideas in the concrete and as not being thought, not inside and in the abstract and as thought only as being thought; — and from this there is no possible escape. Meanwhile, not only do space and time obtain external to the mind and absolute but, moreover, are they things themselves perceived by the mind, and perceived as external to it and absolute — which, external and absolute, they are. They are things verily perceived, yet that Kant and his apolo- gists and worshippers in defense of his doctrine of their mere phenomenality, insist that such as, say space, can not be an object of sense because some- thing negative. And can't it? — Can't because something negative? And, pray, what distinctively is an object of sense? Surely not something as be- ing conceived, something in the abstract, something as being thought; not this, as that would be object itself within the mind as only could we then con- ceive it to be; and which, as only within the mind as only could we then conceive it to be, then only, as perceived, perceived as within it — perceived as within the mind as only as perceived within in it could we, by any possibility realize the perception as being. Surely not this, I say, but something as not being conceived, as not obtaining in the abstract, as not being thought, and which because not being thought, may, therefore, be something outside the mind, and conceived as out of it and, as perceived, conceived as only realizingly can it be conceived, ad being out of it. I04 Critique of Pure Kant This, I say, is an object of sense, as we must understand it as experienced, and perceived — and nothing else is. But how experience, how realize, and how per- ceive, — which may be easy enough, comparatively, something positive — what is something negative f — how, space,, for example? Not by touch with something positive, certainly. A fly, as in flying it brings up against a window pane, has no sense of space but of resistance. Only as it having had a sense of resistance, something positive, and then flies away again, has it sense, has it experience, real- ization and perception of space, something negative — and then it has. By the sense of touch, alone, of something posi- tive you may — perhaps (?) — have provoked a concept of space (as some contend), but not a sense of it. In brief, experience, realization, perception of space comes only, but comes, of the contrast be- tween an experience, realization and perception of resistance, and the experience, realization and per- ception of the absence of it ; or as the perception is visual, comes of the contrast between the sight of an object and the absence of sight of it. But all this, Kant only disputes. He does not allow space and time to be outside the mind, and absolute ; and he denies that they are, because things negative, and not to be perceived even were they indeed things outside and absolute. And he was primarily moved to denying them to be external and absolute, or at least finds himself justified in it, by not finding them "given," as he Demonstration of Space and Time Absolute 105 says, in the sensations. So, he sets himself to the task of discovering them elsewhere, and, as he be- lieves, succeeds. He does not, as he expected, find the eggs in the hennery and as laid by a hen, and so he is warranted, as he thinks, in assuming them laid in a tree-top and laid by a crow — the sensibiHty the tree-top, and a priori intuition the crow! Moreover, as lodged with the sensibility, space and time are, as we are to understand, the two forms of it. In other words, not finding them "given" in the sensations, therefore, so his logic runs, are they in the sensibility, and there as forms of it; — and only there! Well, well! and pray, where, in all this, is the logical connection ? Where, betv/een their not being "given" in the sensations, and their yet not being there ? — between their not being there, if not, and their being in the sensibility ? — between their being in the sensibility, if there, and their being there as forms of it ? — or again between their being there, if there, and their being only there? Where? — it would seem needless to say, not anywhere ; no logi- cal connection whatever in a single instance ; in the last, none any more than because there being in a mirror, objects, reflections of objects outside it, still that not known to be such, therefore, are they not such, and are independent objects and as absolute as any! And yet Kant assumes logical connection in every instance ! Not "given" in the sensations forsooth ! — Why, did Kant even know what "given" in the sensations means ? Did he not know that being "given" in the io6 Critique of Pure Kant sensations has nothing to do with their existence there — except that existence there is necessary to being "given" there and that therefore space and time could exist there, though not there as "given" or givenable at all ? Did he not so much as know that being "given" means being entertained in the con- sciousness as such, or the thing it is — know that a fish could entertain in its consciousness, water as something being swum in without entertaining the something as such, and as water swam in? and so, that the water, not being entertained as such or as water, only as which it were is it there in the fish's consciousness in givenable shape to be "given" in the fish's consciousness at all, is not to be found "given" there at all? But speaking more generally, this is to say that space and time as not being entertained in the sensa- tions as being there entertained in consciousness as such, that is, as being thought, and as space and time, by either fish or human, only as which they are, are they there in fish or human consciousness and sensations in givenable shape to be therein "given" at all are not there to be found as "given" at all. And yet that not "given" in the sensations, still not existing there ? No, says Kant. Expecting to find them in the sensations as there "given" that is, as be- ing thought, but not there finding them as thus enter- tained, which he should have known in advance they would not be, since it is no function of the sensibility, — any more than it is of a leaf to gfen- erate the perfume of the flower, — but, alone, that Demonstration of Space and Time Absolute 107 of the understanding, according even to his own doctrine, to thus entertain them and entertain them as concepts or conceptions, — he is blinded to their being there at all. But how silly to say that when a fly brings up against a window-pane that it doesn't experience resistance because it doesn't entertain in conscious- ness resistance as such or as a concept or in the ab- stract; or that, as it flies away from the window- pane, it doesn't experience space because it doesn't entertain, in consciousness, space as such; that is, have a thinking and conceptual consciousness, and not merely a perctpiml consciousness of space — that, because it doesn't think space, it doesn't feel it, forsooth! or that as space is experienced, it yet is not there to experience! However, under stress to find space and time, after the hatching of them by a priori intuition, lodged and "given" somewhere, and anywhere in- deed, as he would have it, but outside the mind, he arbitrarily lodges them with the sensibility. Arbi- trarily, for what bridge, as I have asked before, had he to take him over from not finding them in the sensations to finding them in the sensibility? Just none at all. He made a feint, of course, as would he logically make the passage over from one to the other. But the farce of it ! oh, the farce of it! Besides, what is the sensibility itself? Why, it is a faculty — is it not ? — what is power or organ, a faculty for mental activity, not mental activity itself. The two things are infinitely distinct. And io8 Critique of Pure Kant intuition, a priori or any other, is an activity, a form of activity, a form of perceiving. And so, when Kant says space, for example, is a form of the sensi- bihty, and in the same breath that it is an intuition, he flatly contradicts himself ; for it is absolutely im- possible as it should be one that it should be the other. A ball in motion is not itself that motion of itself. Or, you might as well talk about the form of an object, which may be that of a cube as being that of its motion which itself may be that of a circle or an ellipse, — it would be talking wild; and Kant is just that wild when he would mount, say space, at once astride sensibility and intuition; at once astride what is only a faculty for activity, and what is very the activity itself of that faculty, — and not know he was contradicting himself. And then besides, again, what, in fact, are the sensations themselves to the sensibility? What but much what are the waves of the sea in a storm to the waves of the sea in a calm, namely, that they are there in the sensibility in possibility or potenti- ality only, and not in actuality at all, as the waves of the sea in a calm are in the sea in possibility or potentiality only, and not in actuality there at all? So that, if space and time are not in the sensibility save only in possibility or latency, then for them in actuality we must look in the sensations, and that is just where they are — Kant's elaborate and ridic- ulous dialectic exhibition to establish the contrary notwithstanding. Indeed, and indeed, what the need of the impact, or presence of an external world Demonstration of Space and Time Absolute 109 absolute to the end of the realization in conscious- ness of space and time, if they obtain already in act- uality in the sensibility? What the need, I repeat? However, as it is, what the function of such im- pact or presence if not — to change the figure — much that the parallel of warmth to the egg, and of moisture to the seed, namely, to bring into actuality the sensations themselves, and along with them the space and time that obtain, as do they, only in latency of potentiality in the sensibility ? But to perform the feat of the reverse of this, and lodge space and time with the sensibility, Kant has to do the double trick of taking them over, and at the same time, of reducing them from things in actuality to things only in potentiality or latency. And need anything be said that should be evident the preposterousness of any affected achievement of it? Or, even supposing he had achieved it, and that they are landed, in very truth, in the sensibility as latently or potentially there as a chick in an egg, or as a symphony in an orchestra; still, it is contrary to all our experience that we should have any ad- vance knowledge of them as being then there, and not rather only knowledge of them simultaneously with the event of their obtaining in actuality. The former would be like our divining the tree in the seed, the chick in the tgg, independent of our knowl- edge from experience and observation in the matter ; which, of course, everybody knows never fell within the sphere of the human mind's possibility. And with no more reason may we suppose the possibility no Critique of Pure Kant tn of our a priori intuitively divining space and time in the sensibility in advance of their obtaining in actuality in the sensations. And then, what, over all is not to be overlooked is that that space and time are forms of the sensi- bility, though, perhaps, a pretty conceit, is yet ab- solutely unthinkable — unthinkable as being unreal- izable. It is simply think-o/-able as is that the moon is made of green cheese, or as is that two and two are five; but that space and time are forms of the sensibility is no more thinkable, thinkable as real- izable than are these other propositions; and what is simply think-o/-able is at an infinite remove from what is thinkable. This distinction I have noted a thousand times before — or, rather, would have liked to, for there is occasion enough for it, since men, even men of boasted intellect and mental train- ing, academic men, indeed, are continually failing of making it, and are constantly fancying they think things which they only think of. The writer once heard an eminent clergyman de- clare in public that he knew he was immortal be- cause he could think the iniinite. But he had never, with all his learning learned to discriminate between only thinking of the infinite and thinking it thinking it as realizing it. Only what is itself infinite can think, think as realizing, the infinite; what is only finite can only think of the^finite. Of course, the emi- nent divine, miscarrying so sadly in his premise most sadly miscarried again in his conclusion — and all be- cause, yet that he had a university and trained mind, he failed to make the discrimination I have noted. Demonstration of Space and Time Absolute 1 1 1 But now, propositions only thinko/able have to be substantiated by empirical proof to warrant, in any reason, their acceptance as the truth ; and that space and time are forms of the sensibility is one such proposition, the truth of which, it should be needless to say, Kant never produced the facts to sustain. However, such raw assumptions serve one whose work in metaphysics is mostly erratic flights of an exuberant fancy as was Kant's, and which enabled him to spin out a system of grotesque spec- ulation to the plethoric limit of nearly a thousand pages; which, had he but once got down to some- thing like realities, not a quarter of this offensive bulk would have been required for its enunciation. Well, next, Kant reasons — heavens! — rea- sons! that, because not finding space and time "given" in the sensations but finding them, as he thinks, in the sensibility, they must be, and are, in the sensibility only; that is, that they cannot, besides, be things outstanding the mind altogether, and ab- solute. But may not objects, as might they be but as objects in a mirror, and but as shadows relatively to what should be objects substantial and absolute out of the mirror, even must they not, as should they be but such, be objects substantial and absolute out of the mirror, also? Where, then, is the logic of the inference that because space and time should be found in the sensibility that, therefore, they obtain only in it, and do not obtain out of it when, for all Kant knew, the sensibility or mind, in its external perception conducts itself much as a mirror, and 112 Critique of Pure Kant which, with no little reason, it may be argued that it docs ? Now, what I have said of space when I have singled that out particularly for illustration is every whit as applicable to time. Time is just as much a thing primarily outside the mmd, and ab- solute as is space, the academic brethren to the con- trary notwithstanding. We know nothing pri- marily of time but by succession of events; and wherever is succession of events, time is involved, and involved not as a thing being thought but as a thing absolute, as absolute as the succession of events itself; and primarily to be felt, and not thought as ever the mind is brought into relations of contact with it or that succession of events. The academic claim of time as nothing only as it is something being thought is as void of warrant, and as senseless as it is in respect of space. What brings it within experience, realization, and per- ception is much the parallel of what does space. And now, I ask again, where is the logical con- nection between not finding space and time in the sensations, and their still not existing there? — or again, between their not existing there, if not, and their obtaining in the sensibility? or, still again, be- tween their obtaining in the sensibility, tf they do, and their obtaining there as two forms of it? — or yet once more, between their obtaining there in the sensibility, if they do, and their obtaining only there, and not besides in the outlying world absolute? — Where the logical connection? Why, simply no- where, as I have already said, not in one of these Demonstration of Space and Time Absolute 113 several instances. And yet Kant affects to find it there in every one of them! Great logician, Kant! — great ! But now again. It was even Kant himself who said that "the understanding perceives nothing, and the sensibility knows nothing." Why, then, did he think to look expectantly for the being thought where all was perception and, as he himself said, nothing of the being thoughts Simply because he had not philosophical acuteness of analytical mind enough to know that the being thought he was look- ing for was the being thought it was. In other words, he did not know what was the nature of that in his own mind for which he was looking in the sensations. If he had, he wouldn't have made him- self ridiculous by looking expectantly there for what he said himself had no existence there. He was looking for space as such, for space as entertained in the consciousness as space, which is space or the idea of space, space as being thought, but which, the being thought, the sensibility itself does not function to afford, in the sensations, anything of. What was at the bottom of, or added to, Kant's confusion in the matter was, as I have emphasized before, that he could never bring himself to under- stand that what there is experience of in the sensu- ous experience of space, the anything like a concept or conception of is no experience of at all; and so could, by no possibility, be found there. Indeed, space as being thought or in the abstract is to space as not being thought, and yet as being experienced, realized and perceived, much as is the reflection of 114 Critique of Pure Kant an object in a mirror to the object itself reflected — it is nothing of the substance, as it were, of space as sensuously experienced, as the object as reflected in a mirror has nothing of the substance to it of the object itself being reflected. From the stifling air of the valley I go up onto a mountain and experience the exhilaration and bene- fit of mountain air. I am come down again into the valley; but no notion or idea of that mountain air and its exhilaration and benefit is experience, again, of that air, exhilaration and benefit them- selves. Had to remain on the mountain saved me from death from tuberculosis, I shall, now that I am again in the valley, die just as soon of the disease for all any mere notion or idea of that exhilaration and benefit of the mountain air availing anything to save me. And much the parallel of this is space a sensuous experience to space a notion, idea or con- ception. The latter is nothing of the former, and vice versa. That is, what we have sensuous experi- ence of as we hafve sensuous experience of space, a notion or concept of is no sensuous experience of at all; a transcendental experience of space is no sen- suous experience of it whatever. Therefore, therefore, a mere concept of space of a priori intui- tion, or any other intuition, or none at all, cannot possibly afford any contribution to the sensuous ex- perience of it. And yet the validity of Kant's whole Transcendental Esthetic hinges on that it may. And so Kant, and his academic disciple, lost in the de- lirium of supposing a sensuous experience as only, as it were, a concept or idea a flower in full bloom, Demonstration of Space and Time Absolute 115 cannot understand how what is no better than a con- cept or idea of space experienced cannot be an object of sense. But now why should Kant think that because is not there in the sensations, space as being thought, it yet is not there as being feltf Even if to be thought it must be felt, to be felt must it be thought ? If so, then either it cannot be felt, or else as still felt but felt as being thought, then cerainly it must exist there in the sensations, and Kant only blind that he could not discover it there. And, on the other hand, as it should be felt, still that not as being thought, what could it be as being felt but space existing there in the sensations, and that space space abso- lute f It is positively inconceivable that the situation should be anything else than space exisiting there, and that space, space absolute — existing there, that is, much as a reflection in a mirror of an object out- side. And indeed, it is positively conceivable that such must be the situation. If the understanding cannot perceive space once it thinks it, or an idea of it, and the sensibility cannot think it to perceive, how still is it experienced, realized and perceived but as there it is in the sensations as being felt, and there as thing absolute, even? And that Kant should still insist it as not there, — what is this but more of his sickening confusion of thought? And still here follows yet more of it ; or what, if already has been made to appear, is, here, still more baldly to be put. Thus, could Kant not have known that every- thing necessary to external perception is involved in ii6 Critique of Pure Kant it ? — that space and time as involved in it are that necessary to it? Indeed, he even declared they are that necessary. Well then, if, moreover, they are themselves the sensibility itself, forms of it, as he said they are, then external perception being the sensibility active, which it is, we have the wonderful conclusion to arrive at of sensibility necessary to the activity of sensibility! Who would have dreamed it — a wheel necessary to the revolution of a wheel ! — a cat necessary to the activity of a cat ! And could anything come much nearer a reductio ad absurdam, Immanuel Kant, of your proposition of space and time as forms of the sensibility, and miss it? But this is but another drop in the bucket of Kant's abounding absurdity and confusion in the matter. And, yet, still another, perhaps not suffi- ciently already remarked, may be noted as he declares that space and time are the conditions of experience ; which is to say, of our sensations ; for our sensuous experiences are our sensations. But if they are the conditions of our sensations, then manifestly, they must come before such; and yet, as we have seen, they could obtain in actuality only in the event of the sensations. And, still, if they obtain only be- cause of the latter as Kant said they do, then they must come only after such. But, pray, how can that come only after sensations which to come only after must come before them ! This is a more staggering antinomy, and one of Kant's own precious coinage, too, than any of his inventory of that sort of thing, but which he quite I Demonstration of Space and Time Absolute 117 overlooked in that inventory. And it is no joke either, that it is anything of that sort, for it relates to what is of crucial moment. Furthermore, it is not an antinomy little better than a mere play upon words as are some, he is at so much pains to give attention to; but it is the genuine article. But may be noted even still again, that if space and time can come only after experience, how can they be the conditions of experience? And prithee, man, can a hen come of an tgg of her own laying? Can experience come of conditions which could have no existence save only as it, experience, itself first furnishes them? No startling antinomy, this, too? Or, still, even yet, once again, may be noted that most explicitly does Kant declare that while experi- ence is not the origin of our consciousness of space and time, there still would be no consciousness of them but for experience, and which itself still, ac- cording to him, is conditioned on the very things, space and time, which obtain only in the event of experience! A son's existence the condition of his own father's existence, and himself the son existing before his father is, in a nut-shell, Kant's doctrine touching space and time! And if this is not the doubly distilled very quintessence of the impossible and absurd, then what should be deemed such? And, mind you it will not do to claim that in all these situations Kant meant only a logical and not a historical priority, for there is a historical priority involved in every one of them which, as there is, the ii8 Critique of Pure Kant dodge of only logical priority as meant will not work. It is worse than foolishness to talk about a theoretical logical order only, when an observed or experienced actual historical order flatly contra- dicts it. Moreover, still as noting even once more as showing yet further Kant's utter confusion, observe that he said that these two forms of sensibility, that is, that space and time, would not obtain but for ex- perience, still that not derived from experience. However, as experience obtains only with the sensi- bility active, then they cannot by any possibility ob- tain in the sensibility before experience ; that is, can not obtain in actuality in the sensibility itself inac- tive or quiescent and as yet unacted on from out- side; but obtain there in potentiality, or latency only, they obtaining in actuality only in the sensa- tions which are themselves the sensibility active and made so by action, it is said, of the external world absolute on it. And yet, observe that, in their ob- taining in actuality only in the sensations where only they do according to Kant's own terms — I do not say according to Kant's own direct affirmation, but according to his own terms — they obtain exactly where he could not find them as "given," and so, on the strength of the most farcical of logical preten- sions, concluded that they were not there at all! Meanwhile, exactly where, and that in the sensi- bility, he thought he found them, they now, in actu- ality do not obtain at all ! That Kant should be oblivious of their presence where according to his own terms they obtain ; and Demonstration of Space and Time Absolute 119 find them where, according to the same terms again, they have no actual existence, — is truly laughable. It once more only emphasizes the density of the fog he was in in attempting to navigate impossible waters. \ Nothing could more incontes'tably show up the utter metaphysical bankrupt Kant was even at the very threshold of his excursion into metaphysics than his failure to explain how the out-absolute, in which ob- tained the world-absolute which he affirmed to exist, was not space-absolute. For, of course, for there to be a world external to the mind there must be an out of the mind for that external world to be m. And as the world in question affirmed by Kant was itself an external world absolute, the out in which it obtains must itself, too, be an out-absolute. And how is that out-absolute not space-absolute? It is abso- lutely inconceivable by any human mind that it is not. And that Kant could not conceive how it is not shows he was at that very moment a bankrupt in metaphysics with not a ghost of a footing for further progress in metaphysical exploitation. He could not show how that out absolute was not space absolute for the simple reason that it could not be shown, and could not be because indeed that out absolute is very indeed space absolute. But will any canting Kantian, the globe over, tell us how out absolute is not space absolute? If he can and will step forth and do so, he will at once become more famous than either Kant or Copernicus, and have the everlasting gratitude of all coming genera- tions of men. Things as out of space is as absolutely unthinkable, unthinkable as unrealizable, as is absolutely unper- ceivahle things out of space. It is think-of-able, of course, as is that the moon is made of green cheese, which still is not thinkable, thinkable as realizable, and is not true. And yet Kant assumed the external world absolute, or the world, as he called it, of things such as they are in themselves, to be out of space! It was his necessity, the necessity of his fundamental thesis. But that was only because the latter is pro- foundest and most ridiculous error. It was chronic with him to be mistaking only the thinking of a thing for the thinking it, and then failing of wits enough to know that only as the thinko fable had the sunport of direct ob- servation, analogy or of experimental proof was it, by any decent intellect, credited with being true. X The Bewilderment and Error of Kant's A Priori Intuition His Total Bewilderment and Error at a Climax Then from his contention of space and time not being "given" in the sensations, and their obtaining in the sensibility as forms of it, Kant proceeds to mix up with the unutterable tangle and confusion thus far, the further tangle and confusion of his notion of space and time as being — well — what? — as being a priori intuitions, "forms of a priori intuition," "forms of perception," all of which phrases seeming of much the same import? or, as being things of a priori intuition, those things either "forms of the sensibility," or resultants of the pool- ing of the functionings of the reason, the under- standing and the sensibility? Which of these did he say, or what mean? And then a priori intuitions of (or of and by) what? — the reason? the understanding? or the sinsibility? or even of (or by) all these jointly? Which, again, did he say, or which mean? And, indeed, is it altogether so certain that his own mind was not in a muddle of muddles as to which he said or meant? Else, why all these volumes upon volumes of exposition and criticism of Kant; one of them a 124 Critique of Pure Kant work of near a thousand pages written more in exe- gesis than either in adverse or in favoring criticism of him; and the pages of other works Hterally strewn, some of them, one might almost say reek- ing, with such expressions as, "Kant seems to have meant,'' "Kant had probably in mind,*' "it is not quite clear his meaning," "did Kant wish it under- stood?" and so on, and so on? Else, why, I say, all such confusion of thought as when one enthusi- astic disciple exclaims — "Space and time are abo- riginal intuitions," and "aboriginal intuitions of the reason [the italics mine] prior to all experience; this is the immortal discovery of Kant ;" while another disciple puts it that "universal space is not itself an object of external perception but a fundamental cc?nception that makes external /perception possible/' — the a priori intuition thus being made of (or by) the understanding, not of (or by) the reason? It all can have significance of but one of two interpretations, if not something of both; either of the immeasurable intellectual obtundity of Kant's expounders and critics, or of the scarcely less immeasurable failure of Kant himself either to think, or to write, with decent perspicuity. Mr. Herbert Spencer wrote far more voluminously, with far greater contribution to the world's knowl- edge, and with vastly more broadening influence upon mankind's thinking than did Immanuel Kant. But is there yet one work extant in exposition of him in the sense of re-writing him with the view of his being understood as to what he either said or meant? And if not, why not but that, whatever Kanfs A Priori Bewilderment 125 A his errors of fact, or of reasoning, still, what he tried to say, or affected to think, he thought and said with a precision and intelHgibility that left no doubt as to what he had clearly in mind as aiming to say; while Kant, on the other hand, as would ap- pear, was constantly only circulating round either what he was aiming to think, or what he was vainly trying to utter; and even, besides, only circulating round the truth itself, which he rarely so much as made an approach to thinking, to say nothing of ut- tering? In short, Kant himself at least, whatever is to be remarked of his legion of would be Boswells of what he wrote, wrote slovenly, and even thought slovenly. Hence, as I have before stated, the volu- minousness of his own Critiques, as also of the critiques of those Critiques by his would be Bos- wells and others. Had he written only a small work and one therefore necessarily very condensed, some other explanation might pass; but, as it is, no other will. But to return to the question — Which did he mean ? and altogether what did he mean ? For it is profoundly important which and what he endeav- ored to have clearly in his own mind, and would convey to the minds of others. If it was the first, and that space and time are a priori intuitions, then what is meant? Why, no less than that the intuiting is the intuited; that the two are one. Or, phrasing it a little differently, with, perhaps, a shade of difference in the import, it means that with the intuiting, though itself logi- 126 Critique of Pure Kant cally in advance, proceeds still, practically pari passu, the intuited, the former constituting or creat- ing its own object, namely, the intuited, as intuit- ing proceeds. It means the two locked in fast and passionate embrace as much so as convex and con- cave surfaces and a curvilinear plane; one of which, the intuited or the intuiting, you can no more wipe out and have left the other than you can either snuff out the surfaces of the curvilinear plane and have remaining the plane itself; or snuff out the plane and have left the surfaces. Moreover, is meant what more? Why, that the mind intuits, that it perceives, in advance of the existence of the object it intuits or perceives! But who outside the Kantian circle, ever heard or knew of the human mind's perceiving before it had an object before it to perceive? There may be latent capacity for sight, in the absence of objects, as we all know ; but, primarily, no actual sight. And the same of external perception in general. Any talk to the contrary, let it be Kant's or whosoever's, is pure assumption, and I want to say pure rubbish, withal. And here am I to be reminded again that Kant had in mind only the logical order ? It is in vain ; for there obtains the historical order in the situa- tion in question; and where obtains the latter, the plea that only the former is meant is a dodge that will not pass. But now again. If Kant said and meant the second of the propositions in question, namely, that space and time are things of a priori intuition, and Kant's A Priori Bewilderment 127 those things two forms of the sensibility of which two there is a priori intuition, then is meant that they themselves obtain in advance of their intuition or perception; is meant that the intuiting and in- tuited are two things distinct and independent in such wise that you could at least blot out the intuit- ing and still have remaining intact the intuited — which is a very different proposition from the other. But now still once more. If Kant said and meant the third of the three propositions, and that space and time are not only things of a priori in- tuition, but things the resultants of the pooling of functionings of the reason, the understanding and the sensibility — if not of the external world ab- solute, besides, — what is meant in effect at least, and is anyway, involved ? Why, the most flat denial of the mind as an evolution and a development; meant the assumption that as ever there is mind at all of any order, there is mind of all the order that there ever is of mind; the assumption that there is all the order of mind in the infant human as in the human adult; and in the polype as in the infant human ; meant the complete obliteration, practically, of all distinct independent functionings as of dis- tinct faculties in the substitution of what in effect is but one faculty and that one faculty the whole mind! And, yet, is not the mind, our mind, the only mind we know anything about, is it not an evolu- tion and a development? And, as such, is it not a radically different thing from mind as had God said, "Let there be mind (finite) and there was 128 Critique of Pure Kant mind," mind, such as yours and mine, instanter with that decree? Is not the universe an evolution nothing less than a revolution on the universe a snap creation f And must not mind, our mind, in all consistency, as an evolution and a development, be much that revolution on mind a snap creation? Is not mind, that comes to be what it is by a succes- sion of distinct faculties, a most radically different affair from mind a complete outfit from the start of all the faculties there ever are, these all being sprung suddenly full-fledged upon the scene like Minerva full armed from the head of Jove? How could you imagine one thing more radically differ- ent from another save only as it was totally radi- cally different? Certainly it is inconceivable that all develop- ment should not pattern after the same general plan or formula. If so, then what is a plant as a de- velopment, mind as a development must be. And with the plant, is it not, generally, first the leaf, and then only later the flower, and only still later the fruit? Moreover, is there an advance pooling of func- tions or functioning in it all such that the nature and product of the functioning of the leaf is affected and determined by anything of the flower? Have the flower and its functioning before they actually exist any determining influence on the leaf or its function as these first exist? Have the former any more after they exist? And so, as with the plant a de- velopment, is it not with the mind a development? As with the plant, it is first the leaf, and then only Kanfs A Priori Bewilderment i2g later the flower, is it not, too, first some mental organ and function or other — and who shall say it is not organ or organs implied in sensuous per- ception that is first? — and then only later the un- derstanding? And should we, in reason, more ex- pect any pooling of functions or functionings in respect of mind than in respect of plant, such that there should not be distinctness and independence intact there of faculty and functioning as in the plant? Should we more expect that, the faculty for entertaining things as such, or as abstractions, the faculty, namely, of the understanding, before it exists to meddlesomely interfere and determine the nature and functionings of the faculty for sensa- tions, the faculty, namely, of the sensibility? or more expect it to do so after it is developed and ex- ists than in respect of the plant? And yet, this last at least, is just zvhat Kant expected, and so plainly expected that one of his exegetical critics says flatly, "Kant indicates . . . that we cannot have the con- sciousness of an object of perception without the activity of the understanding" ! And in this, what is the matter with Kant? Why, as I have said before, that in all his pondering, backing and shifting he never could get it through his mind that what there is experience of in sensuous experience, a notion, idea, concept or a priori intuition of, is no experience of at all; so that, by no possibility, could that notion, idea, concept, a priori intuition, be any contribution to the sensuous experience, as Kant would have it that it is, and drags us vainly through a thousand pages to prove. But this two- I30 Critique of Pure Kant fold fact that no notion, idea or concept of a sensu- ous experience can be any experience of that sensu- ous experience, and therefore no contribution to the sensuous experience, is only another of the many things that undermines and wrecks the whole Kantian metaphysic. But now, mind, such as mind an evolution and a development, — what a contrast to mind a snap creation, and of Kant's sheer fancy and exploita- tion ; mind of poolings and the wildest confusion of functions and f unctionings ! And just to think of it once more — no sensibility but as there is un- derstanding! — no activity of the former without the meddlesome interposition and even overriding partnership of the latter! — no space sensuously experienced, for example, until it is first conceived ! — which is as good as saying, no leaf but as there already obtains the flower, and even the fruit; and indeed more than even this, and that there is no functioning of the leaf hut as the Hower has a hand in it — the flower even whether it as yet exists, or not! Such is the metaphysic that is a cart before the horse metaphysic. Such the metaphysic that the primacy and transcendency of the concept or the being thought is it in a nutshell. Such the meta- physic that it puts the thought of Being before the Being of which there is the thought ! If Kant in his delirium was not contending for much this notion of the a priori intuition of the re- sultants of the pooling of the functions and func- tionings of the understanding and sensibility, as much as any other, even if at times he seemed to be Kant's A Priori Bewilderment 131 laboring with quite another view inconsistent with it, how is it, I ask again, that his expounders and critics should get it from him that he was? How is it except that they, in their own minds should themselves be floundering as badly in the mud as he in the mire? How is it that one should say that "space and time are aboriginal intuitions of the reason"? — another say that "Kant indicates that we cannot have the consciousness of an object of perception without the activity of the understand- ing' — that another, even the most eminent of Eng- lish expounders and critics, — if the most volumi- nous is to be rated the most eminent — should say that "universal space is not itself an object of ex- ternal /j^rception, but a fundamental conception that makes external /perception possible?" How, but either that Kant himself was befogged with the notion of the intermeddling of the understanding, or of the reason, with the function and the every deliverance of the sensibility, or then, that his critics and expounders are worse confounded than he? If only one student of Kant so construed him, it might, very properly, be attributed to the lack of dis- cernment of that one student. But when many, or all, derive such meaning from his words, it would seem impossible that such meaning, even if in great confusion, should not be there. But just think of it even once again, what this joint action, — joint, with the concept leading in the procession — as there is to be any action of faculty at all, means! Why, it means that if "space is not an object of sense, but a fundamental conception 132 Critique of Pure Kant that makes external perception possible," then flea and fly have no external perception but as they may entertain concepts ! A fly endowed with abo-ut, or altogether, the highest form of mind with which man is endowed, — is that it ? And, indeed, could idiotic drivel go farther ! The author above quoted, no better than Kant, has any clear sense of the realisation of space void of all conception of it (space) as such, which, en- tertaining it as such, is peculiarly the function of the tmderstanding or conceiving faculty, as I have laid every stress on in my power to make evident. For he no better than Kant seems even so much as to dream that what there is sensuous realization of as there is sensuous realization of space, the con- ception of, the idea of, is no realization of at all. Their notion of a conception of space would seem to be a sensuous realization of it — only something more! However, either, to fancy fly or flea without ex- ternal perception; or to fancy them to have it in- dependent of space and time to have it in, are the sole alternatives but as it is conceded that they do, indeed, have external perception, and have it in space and time, and in space and time not as things conceived, but as things primarily realized and per- ceived, perceived as realized, whether subsequently conceived, subsequently entertained as such, or not. Altogether, then, what is to be said of the proposition of space and time as a priori intuitions or forms of perception as they were to be given an interpretation involving a pooling of the functions Kant's A Priori Bewilderment 133 and functionings of the mind's primary faculties? Why, as I remarked at the outset, it is a rank out- rage on the doctrine of evolution. Arid what is to be said of the theory altogether of the sensuous experience of space and time as in- volving the Kantian a priori intuition ? Why, that, to the perfect Babel of confusion that it is, the Babel written of in Scriptures is as very harmony itself, harmony the most blissful in the comparison! That there is such a thing as a priori intuition, and of space and time, with whatever else, it is not necessary to doubt. But that it obtains except as latent, or in embryo as it were, is not only to be doubted but scouted as among the silliest of silly notions. That it is anything obtaining in actuality either as intuition prior to, or as necessary to, the sensu- ous experience of space and time is getting the cart before the horse with a vengeance, contradicting all our more vulgar expectation, at least, and coining, for truth and knowledge, all our propositions and theories out of the air instead of out of ground facts. The chicken, in embryo in the tgg, obtains prior to the action on it of any rise in temperature which develops it into the chicken full fledged or chicken in actuality; but obtains not necessarily, nor in fact, logically or otherwise, prior to rise in tem- perature. So intuition, — in the forms of the rea- son or the understanding, in embryo, — obtains as a priori intuition as obtaining prior to the any ac- tion on it of the sensuous experience which de- velopes it into intuition in actuality, when then it is 134 Critique of Pure Kant intuition no longer a priori; but not necessarily, nor in fact, obtaining in actuality prior to the existence of the sensuous experience itself. Meanwhile, it is well to note in passing, that the chicken itself, full-fledged or chicken in actuality, is not derived from the rise in temperature, but that the chicken in embryo's development is. And so any a priori intuition in the forms of the reason and of the understanding in actuality is not derived from sensuous experience but the development of a priori intuition in embryo into simple intuition in actuality is derived therefrom, or, more strictly, provoked thereby. Meanwhile, again, it is well to note, too, that the chicken full-fledged has nothing to do with the rise of temperature; and no more has intuition of the reason or the understanding in actuality any- thing to do with the sensuous experience as deter- mining its nature or the characteristics of its issues. But to return ; only in the above meagre sense is there the least truth in a priori intuition; and it is nothing worth contending for as even Kant would himself allow. It is not of the least availability for the purpose for which Kant invoked the fantasy to serve. His a priori intuition is intuition in actuality, logically at least in advance of all sensuous ex- perience; an a priori intuition everything of which is little better than the wildest chimera that ever dis- graced philosophical literature. It is doctrine so altogether strained and far fetched, and so utterly without warrant in fact or reason, that veriest rub- bish is the only term fittingly to be applied to it. Kant's A Priori Bewilderment 135 There is surely coming a development of human intelligence to which it will be a surprise how men pretending to brains and culture could ever once give a thought to such an inanity. It should be added that Kant himself knew little or nothing of the doctrine of evolution as we have it revealed to us by modern science, and has some excuse. But his disciples of the present day and generation have none that they do not make the discriminations above noted, and have done with a priori intuition, in the fullness of the Kantian sense, forever. And doubtless they would do this, only that they are so benumbed and swamped with the childish notion of the universe a snap creation, and with the correlated notion of consciousness some- thing aboriginal and primary, that they are blinded to the truth abreast of its advance along other lines. Otherwise, we might yet hope that they would soon throw the Jonah of the Konigsburg philosopher overboard to save the academic philosophical ship from foundering in a sea of disgust of all intelli- gent mankind. But not even yet here am I done with Kant's bewilderment and confusion in the matter of his a priori intuition. While yet it perhaps, may not be doubted that Kant under the spell of his overshadowing convic- tion touching the two propositions, namely, of abo- riginality and transcendency of the conscious mind, and, again, of the manifest universe as a snap crea- tion, could not wholly escape its influence as afford- ing predisposing cause for movement of his thought 136 Critique of Pure Kant along lines consistent therewith, it still would appear that it was the genius of Hume's scepticism that proved the exciting cause, to such predisposing cause, impelling him to the coinage of a priori intui- tion as an escape, and the only escape, out of a diffi- culty. However, the trouble with Kant was that he overshot his mark. To meet Hume it was only needful to explain how we should conceive neces- sary relations between distinct experiences where we did conceive them, not where we didn't. No- body but Kant, or a Kantian, ever even dreamed that, between the any sensuous experience and the super- sensuous there is a necessary connection such that only as was anticipated the former by the latter could the former obtain. But Kant sought out a gtm of a calibre, and trained it, to shoot beyond Hume's fortification and in shooting to shoot be- yond it shot over it, and thus missed the object it- self of all his waste of ammunition. In other words, in seeking to prove too much, he most wretchedly and ignominiously failed of proving what he sought to. Does this indicate, al- together, clarity of mind? Hume suggested and insisted that all our ex- periences are single experiences, in not one of which is "given" any necessary connection with another and others, and that yet that we conceived such con- nection is simply due to habit of thought formed of long observation of them in certain constant as- sociation. Thus, for example there are the ex- periences of the perception of the ball, of the percep- Kant's A Priori Bewilderment 137 tion of the bat, of the perception of the striking of the ball by the bat, and of the perception of the con- sequent motion of the ball ; and in not one of these single experiences is "given" any necessary con- nection with another ; and if we have come to con- ceiving any between them such as cause and effect wherefore the ball on being struck should move, it is due solely to mental habit formed of long ob- servation of the fact that invariably as the ball was thus struck it did move ; and not due to any neces- sary connection as revealed to us by those experi- ences themselves of cause and effect. Kant conceded that there is nothing "given" in the single experiences wherefore we could know of necessary connection between them; and where- fore, in such instance as the above, could be pred- icated a necessary relation of cause and effect. But he insisted that yet that not "given," still such is there. He insisted that such still is there, yet that he had assumed in respect of space that that is not in the sensations because not "given" in them as being there! So here again only another of his countless inconsistencies; and right here only further illustration again of his bewilderment and ^fnental confusion in his strenuous reaching for- ward for his a priori intuition. For, pray, if flat contradiction of himself is not further illustration of it, then what would be? Surely, if space, because not "given" in the sensations as being there, therefore not there, then how not the any necessary connection between single experiences, because not "given" in them as 138 Critique of Pure Kant being there, therefore it not there between those single experiences ? But, says Kant, it is there, — and still no mud- dle in Kant's thinking! But now once more. Kant is up against a prob- lem, and feels, as I have said, he must solve it, or his own philosophy is nipped in the budding. So he does what seems to him his only recourse, namely, makes appeal to the reason? '*The reason" he says "made the cosmos.'' Made the cosmos or manifest universe! Made it! Now, in the first place, there is not the slightest fact in evidence, nor one rational consideration in support of the proposition that the cosmos or manifest universe was ever or is ^^made" by any- thing. Moreover, it is only a rather obsolete edition of the intellect that, nowadays at least, gives credence to any such childish notion. A universe ^^made" implies once its non-existence — a notion scouted by the most intelligent minds as absurd enough; and implies a maker which or whom of course, has no existence if a "made universe" has none. And yet Kant assumed, and practically the whole aca- demic philosophical world assumes little less than that the reason "made" the universe! But, hold. Here is a locomotive constructed according to the principles of mechanics; but would you say that the principles of mechanics made the locomotive? Not unless you were stark mad and a fit subject for the insane asylum. Why more say that, because the universe is constituted according to or consistent Kanfs A Priori Bewilderment 139 with the conscious reason that therefore the latter made the universe? And yet Kant and the whole Kantian academic philosophical world is just that stark mad. But the locomotive yet that not being "made" by the principles of mechanics, still obtains coinci- dent with them and in perfect accord therewith. It still obtains yet that not only are not those principles its author but they are not even its origin, altogether. And so of the cosmos or manifest universe and the reason. The former yet that not having its cause, nor even its origin, in the latter, still has be- ing contemporaneous and in perfect harmony with the latter. Moreover, that synchronously and con- sistently with the reason should obtain the cosmos or manifest universe though still not as having it as cause or origin, is quite ample enough to account for the any necessary connection between single experiences where Hume and the rest of us — barring always of course Kant and his following — have ever once conceived there to be any. However, that the reason "made" the universe involves a necessary connection between sensuous experience and the supersensuous such that the former is dependent for its very being on the latter, even on that supersensuous experience of the rea- son itself; a necessary connection such and where Hume never once conceived there to be any — and nobody else except Kant and his following; and as such, and where Hume, or we, never once con- ceived there to be any is such and where as does not I40 Critique of Pure Kant come within the range of Hume's problem whicli related only to necessary connection where we had come to conceive such between experiences — not where we hadn't, as I have already said. In Kant's attempt, then, to refute Hume is in- volved more than an attempt to refute what to re- fute is to refute him. And why more ? Was it be- cause Kant failed to recognize that it was only where we had come to conceive necessary connec- tion between single experiences that was involved in any reply to Hume, and not where we hadn't — and that here again is illustration of the bewilder- ment and confusion he was in? Or was it because he was at a loss to know how to refute him but as he more than did so? Or was it again, because he was so beside him- self with his conviction of the reason, the conscious reason or mind, as having made the cosmos that that, as covering in all possible situations, covered in any little trifle such as what precisely was Hume's problem and made, what precisely it was, of no concern ? In any case, whichever it was, is only shown, as time and time again before, both his confusion and his error. In any case, he over-shot his mark, and in over-shooting it missed it altogether. But, anyway, whether the last was the situation or not, it was his necessity that the reason "made" the cosmos or universe as he was to be afforded the ghost of a footing for the staging of his a priori intuition; for it is only as the reason "made" the cosmos or universe that the senses, sensuous experi- Kant's A Priori Bewilderment 141 ences and their deliverancies of space, time, and the rest obtain in conception in the reason, even though but logically, in advance of their actual realization, only as zvhich they did could there be any a priori intuition of them, by the reason in advance of that actual realization, as was Kant's contention; only as which they did could there be even a ghost of a warrant for Kant's assumption of conception com- ing before perception, concept before percept, and on which the percept depended, and external per- ception itself prove little or nothing other than that concept in a transformation scene of simply its own exploitation of itself externally ; only as which they did, could Kant, think as he did, to bundle the rea- son, divorced of the senses and the sensuous ex- perience, under his arm and sweep off up into the clouds with it, fancying it then, in its isolation, had but to be consulted to reveal a priori intutionally everything, space and time with the rest, which yet the senses and the sensuous experience wore the dis- guise of only themselves originally revealing, or at any time revealing. A Reason only such as with which should but coincidently and consistently the cosmos obtain, would not answer Kant's necessities; not even such, or whatsoever, as might be the origin but not the maker of the cosmos, would. Nothing less than a Reason that should be a "maker" of the cosmos would serve Kant in his extremity. But this far from distressed him. And why, saturate as he was, overwhelmed as he was with the Christian dualistic conception of universal Being, was it not inevitable 142 Critique of Pure Kant that a "made" universe should be not only the main- spring to his any attempt to answer Hume, but also his only hope of affording even a show of founda- tion for his a priori intuition. However, that it had to be a ''niade'' universe that should serve Kant, only shows up the blank cartridge affair of his attempt to extinguish Hume, while at the same time betraying "the baseless fabric of a vision'' that is the underprop of his whole metaphysic. Of course, it is something of excuse for Kant that philosophy saddled and ridden to death by theology was his heritage, (and his handicap) as it was of others of his generation, from the generations pre- ceding him. But it, at least, is none for his modern disciple who basks in the sunlight of a freer atmo- sphere and a vast increase of knowledge which should emancipate him whether it does or not. If today nearly every occupant of the chair of philoso- phy in our universities the world over is a theist or theologian before a philosopher, it is not only to his own disgrace but a standing blight on all prog- ress in philosophy and a damning reflection on aca^ demic pretensions to brains and culture. Only that once philosophy be emancipated of its blasting religious thraldom, and perhaps we may then have a metaphysic which to entertain we must not first gulp down our intellect and our common sense as a preliminary to its possible acceptance. However, that Kant was suffering from the thrall of his heritage of a theology ridden philoso- phy in no little measure accounts for the bewilder- Kant's A Priori Bewilderment 143 ment and confusion that, following him, attained to its climax in his attempt to give a priori intuition the semblance of anything but the most ridiculous of absurdities. . And now, finally, before dismissing the matter altogether, to notice but briefly two or three proofs, proofs as they are dignified as being, of space and time as a priori intuitions of reason. Thus it is said, first, that the infant tends to withdraw from disagreeable objects and to ap- proach such as give pleasure is such proof of it. But this, in truth, is so far from being proof that it is not even the least evidence of it. Intuition a priori like every other involves a consciousness, and a priori intuition, say of space, implies and involves a consciousness of space. Now is there any con- sciousness of space in the infant's mind in that ap- proach to some objects and withdrawal from others? It is simply absurd to think it. Even an adult's mind would not necessarily be conscious of space in such a contingency. And even again, as the infant might have that consciousness of space after the experience of approaching or withdraw- ing, it is the very height of the unreasoning to ex- pect it to be conscious of space before; and yet it is vital to the validity of Kant's priori that the infant be conscious of space before. All of this, it would seem, should appear self- evident enough. But to clinch it, cut off the head of a frog, apply electricity to its legs and witness the withdrawal reflex movement of them. Is that frog, with his head cut off, exercised with an a 144 Critique of Pure Kant priori intuition of space in that withdrawal move- ment only for such advance knowledge of which (space) could it think to make that withdrawal movement? Zounds, man! — are you quite gone mad that you can dream that, only for a prion, sense, consciousness, knowledge of, space, could there be attraction or repulsion in respect of object? — or dream that the frog^s conduct under the circum- stances afforded any support to such a proposition? But again, it is said that the proof of a prion intuition of space is in that, while you can think away things in space, you yet can not by any man- ner of effort think away space itself. And can t you? Well, in the first place, call to mind, if you can, one single thing that was simply, as you know, a matter of your thought, and without objective reality, and note if you could not in every instance think it away ? And, as you find you can, then ask yourself if this does not argue that, with every probability, you could think space away, too, if that were simply a matter of your mind or thinking, as Kant contended it to be? Or then, as you find you still can not think it away, is it not with every proba- bility because space is not simply a matter of your mind, or thinking, but is a thing absolute and out- side all mind and thinking? But what is even of more force, if possible, than the above considerations is that why we cannot think space away though can things in space away, is because we never once have had the sensuous ex- perience of what, to the vulgar view is space, being away; while why yet we can think things in space Kanfs A Priori Bewilderment 145 away is because we have had sensuous experience countless millions of times of the absence of things from what to the vulgar view is space. Moreover, it may well be doubted whether the human mind limited as it is, is able to think, think as realizing, anything as lacking objective reality, which has it, even though it may think things as hav- ing it which have it not: we are without the least evidence of anything as much. But, anyway, these aside; the foregoing con- siderations are quite enough to more than make evi- dent the utter shallowness of the objection to space being thing absolute that we can not think it away, while yet we can things in it; quite enough to ex- plain everything without recourse to the hocus pocus of a priori intuition in explanation. And yet, still again, and thirdly, it is said that it is mathematics which supplies the conclusive proof of a priori intuition origin, or nature, of space and time. But how mathematics? We are just as dependent on things in space and time for our real- ization of space and time, and, in general, for our any external perception, as we are on the one thing itself of space and time (speaking of the two as one thing for the moment) in which to realize and perceive things. This is quite overlooked by Kant and his echoes. And that thing, then, in space and time has to be covered in by a priori intuition, or the latter proves unavailing, — even if it were availing anyway — and the whole scheme of which it lies at, the root, comes with certainty of death to naught. 146 Critique of Pure Kant Now will anyone be so bold as to contend that the thing in space and time is anything of a priori intuition origin when it is only in virtue of thing in space that we are even conscious at all, let alone of what conscious? — only in virtue of which can a priori intuition itself, as involving consciousness, have being? Certainly, it is folly, it is even silly, to talk about that, which involves consciousness, as obtaining even logically a priori, that is even logi- cally in advance of that thing, namely, the con- sciousness which is involved, only in virtue of which, namely, consciousness, it exists! Kant himself, even, does not seem to have claimed as much, and does not, because he had not discernment enough — as usual — to be aware that thing in space is as necessary to the perception of space as is space itself in which to perceive that thing. So that instead of mathematics supplying de- cisive proof of the a priori intuition origin or nature of space, it affords none such at all. And that con- sciousness is dependent on things first in space for its being at all, only shows that nothing involving it, such as a priori intuition which does, can obtain, even logically, prior to that thing and to the experi- ence of that thing only in virtue of which con- sciousness obtains. And as that thing is what we recognize as extension, figure, and resistance, col- lectively considered, what is very the dependence of mathematics as making mathematics possible, and which thing in turn is dependent on space, it fol- lows that instead of mathematics proving space to be necessarily something of the mind and anticipat- Kant's A Priori Bewilderment 147 ing sensuous experience, it rather proves space to be something absolute, and as thing absolute, itself anticipating sensuous experience, and all intuition a priori or any other. But now if these proofs so called are so utter a failure even as the least evidence, to say nothing of proof, of space and time having their origin in a priori intuition of the reason, how is it Kant should be found propounding a cause depending on so rot- ten support? Was it yet that back in his mind influencing himi — ^perhaps all unconsciously — was the con- viction that the manifest universe is a snap crea- tion; and again that what was aboriginal and pri- mary is the consciousness or conscious mind? He said himself "the reason made the cosmos"; and, of course, why, then should he not think space and time, with the rest, had their beginning in the reason and their ending in it — except for the illu- sion duly provided for of their being made to ap- pear in the mind of man as not ending there but as obtaining beyond and in grosser more concrete form, and with practically the historical result of concept obtaining before percept, result of concep- tion anticipating perception? Or why, then, again, should he not think, as he did, that he had only to bundle the reason, divorced of the senses and the sensuous experience, under his arm and make off with it, and consulting it in iso- lation to find delivered to him by it, of a priori in- tuition^ space and time, and even what not else of 148 Critique of Pure Kant the created universe, universe created by the reason itself, forsooth, as he would have it. And now, if at last we might sum up the whole situation not only as to Kant's semi-delirium, but as to the facts touching space and time, it would be about this: — (i) First, that space and time are things ab- solute, that is, obtain independent of our minds ; (2) Second, that with the sensuous experience of, say space, may obtain (as in man) the idea of space or of its experience, two things, the experi- ence and the idea, utterly distinct as flower and leaf ; but the distinctness of which we may never realize in the presence, so to speak, of both; the same as with the experience of the mountain air and its ex- hilarating and beneficial effects may be born an idea of as much, two things the experience and the idea, utterly distinct, the distinctness of which we yet might never realize while still on the mountain-top in the presence of both; and yet as which we do as we come down again into the valley into the presence of only one, to wit, the idea, even so might we real- ize the distinctness of a sensuous experience of space from an idea of as much could but once we get away — which unfortunately we never can, for the sensuous experience of space is ever with us — from the presence of the sensuous experience and into that of only the idea; and it is with the idea only with which the reason is familiar, and even familiar with that only in the event of the sensuous experience of space itself ; — it has no a priori in- tuition of it. Kant's A Priori Bewilderment 149 (3) Third, that it was Kant's ever inability and failure — and so, of course, of his modern disciple's as well, — to come to a realizing sense of this dis- tinctness; and that what there is sensuous experi- ence of in the sensuous experience of space, a notion or idea of is no experience of at all, and so can by no possibility be a contribution to, that was in no small measure the spring of his abounding bewil- derment and foolishness of metaphysic. (4) Fourth, that a priori intuition is only a thing generated of a riotous fancy; which thing, as having its nesting in a "made" universe, and universe "made" by the Reason, has itself no exist- ence only as the latter has; which latter having none, a priori intuition, for this if for no other rea- son, has none, — if for no other though it has none for many another. (5) Fifth, that not only is there not even the ghost of evidence of fact or of warrant in reason, in justification of such a notion as a priori intui- tion of space and time by the Reason, but none is there even of such a thing as simple intuition of them by it, or of anything fundamental either as back of, or as making for itself (the Reason) and the universe of things in general. That is, that the Reason is as impotent for vision from a point behind itself of itself and of what is behind itself and making for itself and the vast universe of things as are our own eyes for vision from a point behind them for seeing themselves or what is be- hind them ; Kant insisting to the contrary, neverthe- less. 150 Critique of Pure Kant (6) Sixth, that the bewilderment and error of Kant's a priori intuition are his total bewilderment and error at a climax since, in nothing more than in that is he the sport of his fancy on a rampage; in nothing, more senseless; in nothing, does he more flatly and often contradict himself, which if not bewilderment and error at a climax, then what would be? This the situation. And so, now, in view of Kant's frantic and ridiculous agony as we have found it to be, to justify his freakish fancy touch- ing space and time, I am constrained to say again what I said earlier, — How not only false but silly becomes all this academic chatter about space and time being in us, and not we in space and time! How not only false but silly this claim of Kant's that space and time are either a priori intuitions, or things of a priori intuition, forms of perception, or what not, (which ever it is, if Kant knew himself,) and such antecedent to all experience, still that ob- taining "only because of experience''! And how not so, again, his claim that space and time are not, and cannot be objects of sense, cannot because something negative! How not only false, I say, but utterly silly! And is it then any wonder, in- deed, that Kant at one stage of his agony of exploi- tation of doctrine is suddenly brought up with a round turn, and is forced to exclaim — "How is external perception in general possible, namely, that of space, in a thinking subject in general, possible?" and then to confess — "It is impossible to answer" ? Is it any wonder that suddenly he realizes that he Kant's A Priori Bewilderment 151 > is at the brink of a wide and bottomless abyss, and obliged to acknowledge that, by dint of no ingenu- ity of dialectic of his possible conception, could his scheme of metaphysic be even juggled with to bridge it ? Is it any wonder indeed, when he had so shut up and hermetically sealed space and time within the individual mind, or mind in general, that all avenue for their escape into the open and public to prove themselves space and time in general was made absolutely impossible; impossible to prove themselves space and time in general, only as which they could and did, would they be available for "ex- ternal perception in general?" For, how could there be "external perception in general" except as there were space and time "in general" for there to be external perception in general in? And how space and time in general for there to be external perception in general in, but as there were space and time such as might serve a plurality of minds ? And how such as should serve that plurality, but as it were space and time in common? And how space and time in common but as it were space and time entirely outside that plurality of minds, which is to say, space and time external to the mind and absolute? One would suppose that a mind of half the re- puted intelligence of Kant would have known that to immure space and time within the confines of a plurality of minds in severalty, would make utterly unavailable any such for a plurality of minds in common, only as which was thus available, could there be "space and time in general" for there to be 152 Critique of Pure Kant "external perception in general" in. One would suppose, indeed, that it would be seen at once that, to do so, would be to make the any knowledge, the any recognition, of other minds, as there might be others, absolutely impossible ; — vjhich, however, that we do recognize other minds each than his own no one even thinks to doubt. Altogether strange then is it that, yet, that Kant has run up against the snag to which we allude, and even confesses that he has, he still does not seem even to dream it any fault of his preposterous meta- physic? He is like the automobilist in a smash-up who, shocked and more than half insensible that it is the debris of his own wrecked machine piled over him that has brought him to his dire pass and mental confusion, is wondering how the lamp post, he ran into, got in his way rather than how he him- self should have got in the way of the lamp post ! And still, why the situation in which there is this sudden halt, this sudden awakening to, this sudden consciousness of having brought up at, an impossible barrier? Why but that there must be space and time in general for there to be perception in general in, which former could be, and so the latter, only as the space and time were space and time \n common with all minds, which only could they be as were they altogether outside all minds? And why, again, but that, away back in the be- ginning, Kant's inventory of the primary facts of consciousness was fatally short of being exhaustive ; and that there was one more, one at least, and a sine qua non working factor, in any possible pri- Kant's A Priori Bewilderment 153 m^ary solution of problems before him, than those included in that inventory which he either ignor- antly or wilfully over-looked; and that from his neglect of which, his scheme of metaphysic suffered from first to last? Why but this? Why but that that crucial primary fact of consciousness which his carelessness or his intention was indifferent to was that of his recognition of a plurality of minds with their experience? Indifference to that fact is of itself and alone enough to wreck any system of philosophy, let alone how much soever more there might be to do it; and of course, it wrecks Kant's. But now I want to add that, indeed, even is not needed the foregoing demonstration, or any other, of space and time as external to the mind and abso- lute that at least should be shown up the monumen- tal failure Kant proves himself as a metaphysician to be at the very threshold of his excursion into metaphysics. For he declared there is an external world absolute; and he, in just that declaration, declared there to be an out of the mind, and an out absolute of it; since, prima facie, for there to be a world external to the mind there must be an out of the mind, for that external world to be in. And as that world in that out is, by the terms of Kant's own understanding of it, a world absolute^ then the out in which that world is must be itself an out ab- solute. So that Kant, in declaring there to be an external world absolute, declared there to be not only an out but an out absolute of the mind. But now what is that out absolute but space ab- solute? It certainly is utterly inconceivable that it 154 Critique of Pure Kant should be anything else. And what evidence or reasoning still is there that it is? The mere dog- matic assumption that it is not space absolute will not answer. And it rested with Kant, having gone so far, to explain how or why it is not. But in- stead, at this critical juncture, of doing so, he leaves the query hanging mid-air unanswered, and shies oflf up into the clouds and, corralling the fan- tasy of space a form of perception, brings it down to earth, affecting to prove it the space we know; affecting to prove space a form of perception what is absolutely unthinkable, unthinkable as being in consciousness unrealizable — though, of course, thinko/able enough as is that the moon is made of green cheese, while not true. Now did Kant not know that, in declaring an external world absolute, he was declaring an out absolute of the mind? If he did not, then at once is shown up the wrc^tched pretension for a meta- physician he was. Or, then, if he did know, yet, still, is only too manifest that wretched failure of a philosopher he was as he did not realize that at least is absolutely not thinkable, thinkable as realizable, that that out absolute of the mind is not space absolute; and that in putting forward space as a mode of perception what is itself, also, absolutely not thinkable, think- able as realizable, he is putting forward what is ab- solutely not thinkable as being space against what is not thinkable as being anything else than space, as though the former, for fact or truth, could for a moment weigh against the latter! Kant's A Priori Bewilderment 155 h But why did not Kant explain why or how an out absolute of the mind is not space absolute? Simply because he couldn't. And he couldn't be- cause an out absolute is very itself space absolute, and no explanation is possible why or how it is not. And so, right then and there, Kant was balked in his metaphysical line of march; right then and there, was he suddenly a bankrupt with not the ghost of a footing for further exploitation in meta- physics. And didn't he know he was, right then and there, a wreck on the rocks, but without the manliness to own to it? Or hadn't he the wits to know that he was ? In either case, is shown up the veriest humbug of a metaphysician he was. Doubtless it will be said that I fail to treat Kant with even a decent respect. And I fail to, indeed, because I fail to have that for him as a metaphy- sician; and because already too long has been ac- corded him what does not belong to him. But what more than all excites my fury is that the whole academic world with all its pretensions to brains and culture is not yet out of the Kantian woods. And it is indeed positively intellectually sickening that, with all the light of the vast increase of knowledge of the century gone by to be thrown upon meta- physic, that that world has not made a hair's ad- vance for a century or centuries, but is still at the same old stand beating with the same old academic drum-sticks, the same old academic tom-toms. 7 h What is mind? It is physical energy or force at a certain stage of development, which physical energy or force itself is a mode, a change of mode of activity of the Primordial Mental as distinguished from a mode of it, a mode in statu quo, and which is recog- nized as matter. i> What is mind, conscious mind? It is a decline of the Primordial Mental from its first estate; in a word, it is, in a sense and degree, a degenerate form of the mental. vi What is mind? It is that certain development of the simply mental, the Primordial Mental, (that is, of its activity) that is incapable of consciousness unas- sisted from without; and is what, while competent as author or origin of the mechanical physical is nothing so of the living physical; quite the contrary of the Primordial Mental Itself which is capable both of consciousness unassisted from without, and of the origin, though not of the authorship, of the living physical. What is Mind — our Mind? It is that mental something more than the sum of the mental faculties as they should be duly disposed and active than as were they but indifferently disposed and active; the same as a watch, for time result and effectiveness, is that something more than the sum of its parts as duly disposed and active than as were they thrown together but differently. XI Effects of Impressions of the Outlying World Abso- lute on the Mind a Fiction — Kant's All Other Phenomena a Fiction — For What is Mind? But now the next point is, if presumption, and all demonstration are in the direction of the con- scious pane of glass seeing the flying brick at least, all in the direction of the mind perceiving the ex- ternal world absolute at least, acting on it — acting on it, as it is said — ^whether, besides, there is perception of any effects or impressions of that world on it or not ; the next point is, I say, whether yet besides, it does not perceive any possible effects or impressions themselves on itself; whether even, indeed, there are any such to perceive, as Kant contended that there are, and the whole academic world echoes his con- tention that there are? And the only answer to this, is — No, it perceives none such besides, whatever ; for there are none such there made more than are wrought on a glass mirror by the objects it reflects. In the first place, there is not one fact high or low, far or near in evidence of such effects or im- pressions on the mind : In the second place, the very fact that if there were any such, they would obtain within the mind, i6o Critique of Pure Kant and must, as perceived, be perceived, (as we could only in reason anticipate, and which we know noth- ing ex post facto to contradict) as within the mind where they are; and yet that what is perceived is not perceived as within it hut as without it, is to be taken, in all reason as, prima facie, positive proof not only that what is perceived are not effects or im- pressions on the mind at all, but, moreover, that there exists none such there to perceive; since, as there were, it would be such effects or impressions as object perceived and perceived as within the mind and not as without. As before pointed out, if there were such wrought on the mind, there would be two objects almost simultaneously before it, and the consequential effects or impressions as objects fol- lowing so close upon the heels of that as object pro- ducing them that the conscious perception of the lat- ter would likely be eclipsed by the perception of the former; or, as it should not be, then two objects would be perceived ; but as it is only one that is, and that one, as consciously perceived, perceived as with- out the mind, it must be because the other is not per- ceived, and not perceived because it does not exist. Then, still again, there are not to be supposed any effects or impressions made on the mind by the ex- ternal world absolute, either perceived or to per- ceive, for the simple reason that the mind itself is not to be understood as of a nature to be susceptible to effects or impressions from such source. For what is mind, conscious mind, our conscious mind, the only such we know anything about ? It is little or nothing better than a degenerate form of Kant's Phenomena a Fiction i6i the mental And what is that? It is a form of the mental incapable of what the form of it in its first estate is capable of. And what are the tests of the latter ? First, as it is of capacity for authorship, or origin, of consciousness unassisted from outside. Second, as it is of capacity for authorship or origin of everything any mental is of capacity for. Now, only the mental is capable of conscious- ness ; so that capacity for consciousness is a test of mentality. As the Absolute Reality, then, is capa- ble of authorship or origin of consciousness it is something mental. And it is of that capacity, or there would be no consciousness in existence in the universe, which we know there is, very our own being in attestation thereof. The Absolute Reality, then, is something mental. Moreover, that mental such as it is, is the mental capable of authorship, or origin of consciousness un- assisted from outside; for, as would everybody al- low, it being the Absolute Reality there would be nothing outside to afford it assistance. This is quite to the contrary of what it is with conscious mind, our conscious minds which are capa- ble of authorship or origin of consciousness only as aided by the action on them by, or the presence of, an outside world. And the difference may be illustrated as water is considered. Water ordinarily freezes at 32 degrees ; but it may be carried down to a temperature of 31 degrees or lower, without its doing so if undisturbed from without. But touch it with a finger or a stick and instantly it congeals. Not thus disturbed it 1 1 62 Critique of Pure Kant would remain liquid forever, for it has no power to be itself its own finger or stick to disturb itself. The parallel of the water are our minds which as they are themselves author or origin of such con- sciousness as is ours, are incapable, like the water, to be themselves their own provocation to it, but must be dependent on the action on them by, or on the presence of, an outlying world for it. Even Kant would have been glad to get along without such out- lying world absolute, and would have done so only that he did not see how to account for our sensations but for the action of such world on the mind. And the mind itself, such as men have commonly con- ceived it, would, perhaps, but it can't. Quite to the contrary, however, of this, the mental in its first estate of integrity and power, as being the Absolute Reality, is capable of being itself its own finger or stick, so to speak, to molest itself. And this it does as, itself primarily unconscious, it, in its most primary movement of itself of which we have any knowledge, projects. itself in the centri- fugal and returns upon itself in the centripetal and when then, in the impact on itself in that return stroke of the centripetal, it proves itself its own finger or stick, as it were, to disturb itself which thus disturbed it is with the event of consciousness. But now again, I have said that a second test of the mental in its first estate of integrity and power, is its capacity for authorship or origin of everything any mental is capable of. And the mental as the Absolute Reality which it is, must be the author or origin of everything, and with the rest, of the living Kant's Phenomena a Fiction 163 physical; the living physical which the conscious mind, however, the only such we know anything about, was never known to be once the author or origin of, and ever only of the mechanical physical such as a machine — a locomotive or a sewing ma- chine, for examples. And as never known once to be, the only logical inference is that never, — while creating so multitudinous many of marvelous me- chanical things, — because utterly incapable of it. But doubtless it will be thought to protest that human offspring are examples of the conscious mind's authorship of the living physical; and yet, indeed, they are not. You bring oxygen and hydro- gen together under certain conditions with the result of water; but would you say that it was your con- scious mind that is the chemical energy that trans- forms them into water ? And in the sexual relation with the result of offspring does your conscious mind do more than bring the germcell and spermcell together? Is it your mind that is the en- ergy that unites and developes them into offspring f Of course not. It is the mental, then, of other form than that of conscious mind that is the author or origin of the any living physical. So, now, I say again, that what we are familiar with as the conscious mind is little or nothing better than a degenerate form of the mental. It is not the mental in its first estate but a decline from that, — which is to say a decline from the mental of a form void of consciousness as is the author or origin of the manifest universe void of it. Any glib talk, I should add, as there might be 164 Critique of Pure Kant about infinite conscious mind being capable of what finite conscious mind on any scale is not, is to beg the whole question, and to talk utterly foolish, for we know absolutely nothing of any such mind. If it is to be retorted that it is but rational that even still conscious mind should have a hand in that authorship or origin, I reply, — Nonsense. If the mental itself and alone, is capable of entertaining consciousness in latency or embryo and of develop- ing it into consciousness in actuality, the then great- est and most marvelous thing we know of in the realm of manifest Being, Til venture it is quite com- petent for authorship or origin of everything short of it, which — short of it — is everything of which we are conscious. Besides, my own body had origin and develop- ment independent, so far as we know, of my con- sciousness; and why not the manifest universe in general, have its independent of all consciousness? else how the latter the macrocosm to you and me the microcosm, we hear so much about? But now if such as in the foregoing is found the mental as conscious mind to be, what is the mental itself in all the aboriginality and power of it in its first estate and as void altogether of conscious mind? Well, first, it, as very it itself as very the Abso- lute Reality itself, is the forever and forever change- less. And yet again, it itself as very the Absolute Reality itself and very the author or origin of the manifest universe, must somehow yet be forever and Kant's Phenomena a Fiction 165 ever changeful — and it is. And, still, not so in itself, but in its infinitely variant modes of activity and in which, there it is, and not immediately in the mental itself, that Evolution takes place and the manifest universe obtains. In the next place, the mental, primarily uncon- scious yet that it is, is still capable of becoming con- scious, and does become so, if not with every impact of itself on itself in the return stroke of the centri- petal of its most primary movement of itself of cen- trifugal and centripetal, then at last becomes so in the impact it makes on the congeries of forms, in statu quo, of activity of itself which we recognize as brain. And to remark of this in passing, it is to be said that as consciousness obtains as often as first indi- cated, — and which I am disposed to think it does and as continuous as that most primary of all move- ments of the mental, — our own consciousness would be one with the universal consciousness; and hrain as matter, with the rest of the matter of the universe, would be organ and origin of conscious- ness, — with only the immediate agents involved for content ; — while matter as brain would be the organ and origin of such content as is that of what, to our thinking, is exclusively our own conscious- ness. Of course, this cannot be proven. But at least, it is nothing against it that I have no direct con- sciousness of any such universal consciousness; as neither have I of your own, and only know of your own by physical signs — even which we know may i66 Critique of Pure Kant Kant's Phenomena a Fiction 167 be absent and still you be conscious. Much less have I any direct consciousness of my own consciousness as what should be a universal consciousness in con- tinuity. And, again, it is nothing against it that it seems to warm up, and I could almost say people, the whole universe as can be felt that, outside our own, there is consciousness abroad throughout the whole realm of Being. But now then, on the other hand, as our con- sciousness, as well as its content, obtains, only in the event of brain, then we have mind as it is generally understood, and with brain the organ and origin not only of the content of consciousness but of very consciousness, our consciousness, itself also. However, and to return to my query What is the mental ? In either of the above cases, whether men- tality is summed up as in the one where matter as brain is the organ and origin of consciousness as well as content, or as in the other where brain as matter, with the rest of the matter of the universe, is alone organ and origin of consciousness, and brain alone of content such as that of ours, mentality is an energy or dynamic force; and an energy or dynamic force not to be distinguished, by any conclusive test, from what we recognize as physical energy or dy- namic force; and so, therefore, not any more to be acted on, or impressions made on, than is that. True enough, only the mental is capable of consciousness. But true again, that not only as the mental is con- scious is it mental. So that only as it might be shown that physical energy is incapable of con- sciousness, have we any grounds, solid or even su- perficial, for distinction of one from the other; of one, at the worst, from some allotropic state of the other. Neither is it any objection to the notion of mind as being physical force that mind is not amenable to physical tests (of scalpel, crucible, or microscope) as affording any evidence of capacity for conscious- ness; since neither is the constitution of crude carbon amenable to such as affording any evidence of its identity with what should glitter in light; and yet isn't diamond carbon, and doesn't diamond glitter in the light? Neither, again, is it any objection to the notion of conscious mind as physical force that you cannot state consciousness itself in terms of that force. And can you not, indeed? Well, you cannot state the glitter of a diamond in terms of carbon either; but diamond is carbon all the same. So, you can- not state the consciousness of conscious mind in terms of physical force; but mind is physical force, all the same. Diamond is only a form of carbon having capacity for glitter; so mind is only a form of physical force having capacity for consciousness. The glitter of a diamond is contingent on something alien to itself, namely, light; so, again, conscious- ness, our consciousness at least, is contingent pri- marily on something alien to the mind itself, namely, objects in presentation before it. Altogether, the objection that mind is not physi- cal force because consciousness cannot be stated in terms of it, miscarries like every other. 1 68 Critique of Pure Kant But the physical activity or force as the mental and mind, no more than any other, chemical or what you will, can be made an impression on. You may arrest, or possibly accelerate that between oxy- gen and hydrogen in the formation of water; but you can make no impression on the chemical reaction itself while it lasts as in any way altering it ; its statu quo any moment is its statu quo every moment so long as it obtains at all. And no more can you affect the activity, physiologiccnchemical, or what you will, going on in the event of mind so long as that physical activity identified with mind persists. Of course, that all mind is of one form, or even of one grade of physical force, w^ould be a mistake to suppose. But all this is much as to say that mind in its every form or grade, is a constant, and itself unaf- fected by external objects coming before it as is a glass mirror a constant, and itself unaffected by ob- jects coming before that; the mind simply taking cognizance of them as does the glass mirror take, as it were, cognizance of objects coming before it. Nor are the reflections that have already had our attention on the mirror-like nature of conscious mind as affording suggestion of the absence of all such as effects or impressions direct of the outlying world absolute on the mind, all that may be noted ; for the parallel between the mind and consciousness on the one hand, and a mirror and reflection on the other is manifold and variously most striking, to say the least of it. Even to remark it only a little further, which I might much further, we find that as reflec- Kanfs Phenomena a Fiction 169 tion in a physical mirror, say one of glass, is no property or attribute of the glass mirror, so is con- sciousness itself none of the mind. Or, as I might have said, for it is true, as it is only latent capacity for reflection that is an attribute of the former, not reflection itself that is ; so it is only a latent capacity for consciousness that is an attribute of the latter, not consciousness itself that is such attribute. Besides, consciousness is not a factor or constitu- ent of the mind for the reason additional to any wherefore reflection in a glass mirror is not, the rea- son, namely, that it is a development; or rather in strictness the mind to which consciousness is a pos- sibility is itself a development, as I had occasion to insist before ; which, the mind, it being a living, ac- tive, positive thing, could be, but which such as a glass mirror, that being a thing lifeless, inert, and passive, could not be : and a development is not an attribute of that of which it is a development, of course. Then again, as the actual event of reflection in a mirror, say a mirror of glass, obtains only as objects come before it, so the actual event of the realiza- tion of consciousness occurs, primarily, only as ob- jects first come before the mind — so far as we know. And contrawise, of course, as physical objects are withdrawn from before a mirror, is reflection snuffed out, so, as all like objects are withdrawn from before the mind, is consciousness extinguished : or, as still continuing, doing so only as ghosts of former such objects, or as objects of the mind's more or less independent conjuring, pass before it. 170 Critique of Pure Kant I say as ghosts of former objects; and even here, again, still is the parallel maintained between a glass mirror and the conscious mind. For, as the ex- ternal object as reflected in the former is only a tran- scription of the form, merely, of an object, not of its substance, and is but an unsubstantial shadow, but a ghost as it were, beside the external object it- self, so, is the any idea of the object, the idea as only being thought, beside the same idea as obtain- ing in the concrete and as unthought and of the ex- ternal world absolute. That is, the idea as only being thought is but an unsubstantial shadow, a ghost as it were, beside the outlying absolute reality, and unbeing-thought, thought in the concrete, it- self ; and doubly so as it should be but an idea, by the aid of memory, recalled. However, not to follow further the parallel in other points, others which there are as impressive, if not more so, than those already noticed, quite enough has been said that could not be thought im- possible, and might with no little reason be thought highly probable, the mirror-like nature of conscious mind. And, of course, the more mirror-like the nature of it the more certain is it that whatsoever of the external world absolute comes before it, as little acts on it with effects or impressions as do ob- jects brought before a physical mirror, say one of glass, act on that. Indeed, so far as any essential difference with consequences are concerned, between them that can be shown, I myself at least know of none, except such as must follow from the difference between an Kant's Phenomena a Fiction 171 organic, live, active, and positive mirror such as the conscious mind is, and an inorganic, lifeless, inert, and passive one such as is one of glass. And perhaps, too, it is just this difference, and nothing more:, which may explain why the mind, still that mirror-like, may take cognizance of that of which form is the form, take cognizance, that is, of substance or body of an object of the external world absolute, when such as a glass mirror can not ; why it may take cognizance of resistance, the pre- eminent sensuous suggestion of substance or body, while a mirror of glass is limited to form as only of which it may take cognizance as it were. And the same is to be said, if, instead of the statico-mechanical as form or body, it is the dy- namico-mechanical as motion that comes before the mind; the same even as, as in the like of the per- ception of light, it should be a head-on collision of the dynamo-mechanical or motion, as in light perception itself, and the impact of ether vibrations on eye and brain. The presumption here again, is that the mind conducts itself mirror-like still, as ever it has done so at all ; and so, as before, without ef- fects or impressions on itself. So much as to the nature of conscious mind itself. Now note that the mind's immediate deliverance is that the visual light it sees it sees as outside itself; and outside is just where empirical or scientific ob- servation attests that the ether vibrations make their impact ; attests that on the eye and brain, the substra- tum to mind, they make their impact; and where (outside the mind) the resultant of that impact must 172 Critique of Pure Kant be, as are the parties to it, namely, the ether vibra- tions and the eye and brain. Meanwhile there is not a scrap of evidence going to show that that impact strikes any further, any deeper, than the brain itself. What is it, then, but out of all reason to presume it does strike further and deeper ? What but pure unwarranted assumption that it does? And if the blow reaches no further, no deeper, then, surely, there are evidently no effects, no impressions made by the ether vibrations on the mind itself. And yet the mind itself may take, as it were, wireless cogni- zance of those effects or impressions on its own sub- stratum of eye and brain. But still, if outside and nothing of mind or con- sciousness, nor anything of their offspring, how yet, it will be queried, should visual light be cognizable ? How ? Why, cognizable because the outcome of the action of ether vibrations on the mental, namely, the brain, itself something at least, of the mental, mental still that nothing of mind of consciousness, as I am later to explain. The brain itself must be something mental, as it is absolutely unthinkable that that that should be correlated with mind should not be itself, as well as the mind, something mental, mental at least, even if yet nothing of mind or of consciousness. It is as unthinkable as that that should not be wood out of which was evolved a wooden wagon. Moreover, it is absolutely unthinkable, again, that the mind's or the mind's substratum's any off- spring, should not prove cognizable as ever mind it- self was ; or even indeed might, as mind might not Kant's Phenomena a Fiction 173 be, much as water as a gas is visually hardly so, though as a solid altogether so. Moreover, still again, as may be noted in pass- ing, visual light being something altogether mental, yet that nothing of conscious mind, or its offspring so far as what is seen is concerned, that seen being entirely extraneous to such, is nothing, positively at least, properly subjective as is the stock academic claim for it. It is, at most, but something negatively such. It is nothing positively subjective, which is to say, it is nothing the work and outcome of the mind as positively active constructively, any more than in the ring formed as a cube of anything, say of wood, is tied to a string, and whirled swiftly round and round is the ring anything such outcome; any more than seeing what one sees from seeing less of a thing, one so sees — that is, any more than when what at a distance I may see as a horse from my failure to see the horns of what is really a cow, my failure to see the cow as a cow, is due to my seeing positively constructively rather than to my failure to see altogether, failure to see the cow's horns. Any talk, then, about visual light being altogether something properly subjective is to talk beside the mark. Indeed, the relation of my mind to visual light, and to all effects or impressions of the outlying world absolute on the mind as it would be said to be, but really, as it is, on the substratum (the brain) to mind, is much that of a distant telegraph operator to his own telegraphic instrument, and to my any 1 74 Critique of Pure Kant effects wrought on it through the agency of the elec- trical current worked from my end of the hne. Thus, I operate at my end, but the electricity acts, not on the distant telegraph operator, but on his in- strument, the click of which, and the message being conveyed, he simply takes cognizance of — a sort of wireless cognizance of — but is himself no party to The only important difference in the situation in the two instances is that, in that of mind and visual light, the substratum to mind which is brain, (and nervous tissue) answering to the telegraph in- strument of the distant telegraph operator, is a part of the man himself; the man, as telegraph operator himself, as a man being understood to be constituted not simply of his mental as conscious mind, but of that together with his mental short of conscious mind, namely, his brain and etc. The man, who is both, simply cognizes with his mental as conscious mind what happens within the field of the mental itself short of conscious mind. And still, action on the one, the mental short of mind, is no more action on the other, the mental that is mind, than is my in- duced electrical action on the distant telegrapher s telegraph instrument, electrical action on the teleg- rapher himself. And as for external objects seen — themselves seen as would appear — m visual light, it must be remembered that they themselves are never seen, at least never perceived. Only their forms are seen, seen in the light as in a mirror, the light itself the mirror. Only the forms, which, themselves as seen are only tracings in light and shade of those forms, Kant's Phenomena a Fiction 175 could not themselves be understood as working any effects or impressions on the mind if light itself wrought none; and we have just determined that the light itself wrought none; and so therefore neither forms nor objects work any. Altogether then, from the very nature of mind, as we must understand it, we can no more regard the mind as susceptible to effects or impressions wrought on it by the action of the external world absolute impinging on it, or coming before it, than we can a glass mirror in respect of whatsoever comes before that and is reflected in it. But now, while there is all this to be said as dis- crediting the notion of the mind's susceptibility to effects and impressions on it of the outlying world, and of any such being wrought on it, there is noth- ing of any validity to be said to discredit that dis- crediting. That there may be an aftermath of per- ception of object once held steadily before the eyes and then suddenly withdrawn, is not, as hereafter to be considered, of the slightest force as arguing any such effect. On the other hand, what has not already been urged as most positively calculated to undermine any such notion is this : — The very fact that I can- not be directly conscious of your mind, nor of your thought, and still, in external perception, am directly conscious of something is, prima facie, proof that I am directly conscious of somewhat more and other than mind or thought (thought at least as being thought) except, of course, as that something were of my own mind or thought. For, if that something in 176 Critique of Pure Kant were anything of mind or thought, thought as being thought, except it were my own mind or thought, I should be as blind to it as I am to your mmd or thought. However, as it were of my own, it must be and would be, within my own mind, and as per- ceived perceived, unless my consciousness stupend- ously falsified, where it is, namely, within my own mind, but which as not perceived within it, but as outside it, utterly discredits the notion of the sus- ceptibility of the mind to effects or impressions of an outlying world absolute on it. That the con- sciousness is so gay a Munchausen in the matter as to completely reverse the truth thereof is not for a moment, in reason, to be entertained. All presump- tion is against it. Neither the plain-man, nor the man of science acts on the assumption that it is any such. If they did they would hardly know where they were with any waking moment. It is reserved for the academic metaphysical prestidigitator to set up that it is thus susceptible; yet not even he pro- ceeding in his daily rounds as had he any faith in his own sceptical and fantastic speculations in the matter For as he had, he would be moving about momentarily in a shiver of dread lest his next step land him in abysmal nothingness. Moreover, such as he forgets, that any explana- tion as I have before noted, no matter what, or how true, of an apparent inveracity of consciousness does not alter the fact that the consciousness is still every whit the falsifier — if it really be such — as were no explanation afforded, or to be afforded. However, as we recognize the validity of the Kant's Phenomena a Fiction 177 primary deliverances of consciousness, the forego- ing consideration, of itself and alone even, should be convincing that there are no effects or impres- sions wrought on the mind by the external world absolute. And yet there are such wrought, as would appear, on something by that world, and made on ivhatf Why, as I long ago said, on the body and brain, to be sure, what are the substratum to mind and outside it, as who will say that these themselves are the mind itself? But they yet are the substratum to it; and on this the effects or impressions being wrought by the external world absolute, the mind itself, being as it were but in wireless communica- tion therewith, only functions to take cognizance of them. This is all to say, in a word, that the mind in- volved in external perception, is wholly cognitive and not constructive at all ; not constructive as being positively so as generally assumed ; and that any ef- fects or impressions as wrought on it itself are only action; and as only fiction, the underprop to Kant's phenomena is knocked utterly from under them, and his whole metaphysic a hurst bubble. iiM i\\ If space and time are a priori intuitions or forms of perception — whatever may be the difference — then these are themselves their own object, or they are without object. If Kant assumed them without, then how ridiculous he makes himself appear in look- ing for and being disappointed in not finding in the sensations what he assumed had no existence! On the other hand, if he assumed them to be with object, then the latter is in the sensations, and it was only his own fault and want of sense and sight that he could not find them there. We know with most absolute certainty, that mind obtains- but the mind we know with most absolute certainty obtains is human mind — the only mind we know anything about. And human mind was never known to be the conscious author of anything but the mechanical physical, such as a lo^P^^otive or a sewing machine; never once of the Itvtng physical. Most gratuitous then, most utterly without, warrant the assumption that the any conscious mind which we know nothing about is the author of such Itvin^ physical. Uo7t gratuitous, for there is absolutely, no logical con- nection whatever between the consciousness or con- scious mind which we know something about itself ut- terly impotent consciously to produce the first thing of physical life, and the any consciousness or con- scious mind which we know nothing about itself c^w- petent consciously to produce thmgs of physical life - no logical connection whatever. XII Demonstration That What ONLY in External Per- ception We Perceive is the External World Ab- solute Save Only the Illusion Springing Primarily of Not Perceiving It Ex- haustively Mechanically. But now, if in external perception, there is no perception of effects or impression wrought directly by the external world absolute on the mind, nor even any thus wrought there to perceive, then not only do we perceive the external world absolute, something of it, very it itself, but what only we perceive is that world, save only what, as illusion, we perceive, as springs, primarily, of our failing to perceive it ex- haustively mechanically. Which is to say that, only as it is mechanical do we perceive it with illusion, and so perceive it only as we fail to perceive it me- chanically exhaustively; and to say, again, that in external perception, there is nothing, by the mind, of constructive perception as positively constructive, and is only that at the most as negatively so, as such might be said to be constructive at all, and where- fore we perceive the external world such as we do, — what is quite the contrary of what Kant would have it ; as quite so, too, of what the whole academic world is of the settled conviction is the case. And to exploit this proposition in a demonstra- i 182 Critique of Pure Kant tion if we may, let us take a cube of anything, say one of wood, and, tying a string to it, whirl it swiftly round and round — it will look to be a ring. What was all right-lines and corners and no curves is now all curves and no right-lines or corners — a trans- formation complete. And yet, all that is seen, in seeing the ring, is what would be seen — except of course the motion — as might the cube be at rest, or comparatively at rest. Simply the motion, for its swiftness, has cut off perception of the right-lines and corners, and of the motion as motion; but there is no evidence of more being done. That the resi- due of the cube perceived, as the ring is perceived, is not still intact but affected by the motion, there is neither the evidence of fact nor the warrant of reason to show. There are only such as to assure us that it is not affected. And with no evidence of more seen, or to be seen, than the original cube, plus mo- tion of course, and only evidence of still the cube, only less of it, seen or to be seen than in the absence of motion, then why, with any reason assume that, in perceiving the ring, there is more or other and different perceived or to perceive? Why when what you see is exactly what you do as you simply see less? Why, when the illusion of seeing what would seem to be more is easily accounted for in simply seeing that less'^ What is it but the rankest, most unreasoning and dogmatic assumption as is assumed there is more or other and different? The truth is, that you simply see less without knowing that it is simply less than you see. But now then, if in perceiving the illusion of the Only External World Absolute Perceived 183 ring, we still perceive only the cube, only less of it, it is to say that we still perceive the cube, only per- ceive it less exhaustively. And as what we perceive less are features mechanical, then by less exhaus- tively is meant less exhaustively mechanically. But even as the less perceived is, as simply less, itself something mechanical, then by less exhaustively, is doubly meant less exhaustively mechanically. So that it comes to this that, in the illusion of the ring, what still only, we see, only less of it, and see that less from seeing the cube less exhaustively, and less exhaustively as less exhaustively mechanically, is the cube, something of it, plus, of course the motion. In the ring we don't see the cube as a cube but we see it, something of it; and we don't the motion as motion, but we still see the motion, or we shouldn't see the ring. But we fail, as I have said, to see in the ring the cube as such, the cube such as it is in itself so far as it is a mechanical thing, because we fail to see it exhaustively as failing to see it mechani- cally exhaustively. What, now, I have said of the cube of wood and the illusion of the ring, applies to the external world of our perception in general ; that world is an illusion only as it is mechanically such; and what only we ever perceive is the Absolute Reality, save only what besides as illusion we perceive from not perceiving that Reality, as it is mechanical, with mechanical ex- haustion, as was the case with the ring and cube. As there is involved no motion — none that we know — that world so far at least as the primal principles of the mechanical are concerned, is per- 1 84 Critique of Pure Kant ceived for such as it is in itself, save only as we fail to perceive it exhaustively mechanically. Extension, figure, and resistance, and even motion itself, relat- ing, as they do, only to mass or masses, involve no motion — none so far as we know; the resistance may, as known to science, obtain in the absence of all sensible matter, yet not, so far as is known, as due to motion. They, therefore, one and all, as per- ceived for what they are, are perceived for what ex- haustively they are ; and so, perceived for what they are in themselves — extension for such as it is in itself, namely, extension, and so with figure, resist- ance and even motion ; which is to say they are re- spectively no disguise of something else, but are the veritable realities absolute of the veritable external world absolute they would appear to be. Even should the accidents of these such as the extent of the extension, or the form of the figure not be true to the outlying reality, still extension and figure, as such would yet themselves be true; and what would appear, would still be what these are in themselves just the same. They still would afford no illusion. It would be only their accidents that would, and even these doing so only as not exhaus- tively perceived mechanically. Thus a hoop held edgewise before the eyes looks to be a right-line or a straight stick; held semi-edgewise it looks to be elliptical in form ; held at right-angles to the line of vision it looks to be circular which it is in fact. But only could it when held edgewise or semi-edgewise be seen exhaustively mechanically, which it could be, could only it be seen simultaneously as from every Only External World Absolute Perceived 185 point within the concavity of a sphere, it would be seen to be circular in form which it is, and seen only of that form. Or, then again, even as motion is involved, we fail to perceive the external world absolute, so far as it is mechanical, for such as it is in itself, save only as we perceive motion itself, and perceive it as motion which when motion of something of that world, is itself, (the motion) something of that world, and which itself, what it appears, being such as it is in itself, is itself, at least, something of that world as the latter is mechanical, still perceived for such as it is in itself, spite of motion, even motion itself perceived as motion spite of itself. But, otherwise, as we do not perceive the motion, and for such as it is per se, we fail to perceive that world so far as it is mechanical, for such as it is in itself; and fail because, as before, not perceiving it exhaustively mechanically; because, in other words, there is ever something mechanical beyond the reach of perception. Such as light, for example, involves motion, the motion involved in ether vibrations and in agitations, vibratory or other, of brain. And it is an illusion because, as perceived, it is not perceived to mechanical exhaustion. Indeed, paradoxical as it may seem, light perceived to that extent could not be perceived at all, for it (subjective light) would not then exist at all. To urge this matter of illusion still further. Suppose you are observing the white light of the sun, when suddenly are withdrawn the ether vibra- tions represented in red and blue, and that in conse- 1 86 Critique of Pure Kant quence you see the color green only. Is the perception of that color, green, instead of white light due to the mind's positively constructive action? Is to see one thing as simply another is withdrawn from before it seeing with a positively constructive sight that another? , . But you say that, even as it were not, still it is, at least, as green is seen rather than the ether vibra- tions represented in it. But no it isn't ; and is not for the one reason among others because that the ether vibrations are understood to be something physical ; and it is an article of the academic creed at least that mind can have cognition only of the mental; and are ether vibrations anything of the mental, anything of mind or consciousness what is the academic imderstanding as the mental? If not, how can the mind act positively constructively with respect to what it has no cognition of ? How could you build a house of wood when you had no percep- tion of the wood ? No more could the mind evoke light or color out of ether vibration of which it had no cognition. It must have cognition out of con- sciousness at least, if not tw, as oxygen is supposed to have, in a way, of hydrogen in the formation of water. But whether in, or out, it is cognition still ; and the academic creed runs, no cc^ition. Of course, the contents of consciousness it is conceivable, might be made passively to assume the form ether vibrations might impose on them. But would you say the hole, made in mud by a bullet dropped into it, was made by the mud acting con- structively? n Only External World Absolute Perceived 187 Besides, there is not a scintilla of logical connec- tion between your perception of green and the any positively constructive exercise of the mind, where- fore you perceive that color. Nothing of the sort do we know anything about. We don't know that ether vibrations act on the mind, or come near the mind; nor do we know, in the event such happens, that, in external perception, the mind reacts positively and constructively. But what we do know is that those vibrations act on eye and brain. But is the brain the mind? You, the reader, doubtless would be the last to concede as much. But the brain, something of it, may still be mental, the primordial mental, yet that nothing of mind of consciousness as I have dis- cust in a previous chapter, and that be acted on of ether vibrations. Well, then, with the ether vibrations acting on the brain, not on the mind, and with the brain, some- thing of it, understood as mental, the whole situa- tion becomes luminously clarified and explicable. The physical as brain is then understood as the pri- mordial mental in disguise; and which, the brain, cognizable, as we know it to be, is to the effect of the primordial mental itself cognisable, even though the mental as mind or consciousness (other than each man his own), is not, as we know it is not; is the primordial mental cognizable even though the mental as mind or consciousness is not ; the same as water as ice is visible, yet that as a gas, invisible. But as cognizable, it is what as outside the mind, is so, as the brain, as cognizable, is outside. Moreover, this primordial mental as provoked, as the brain is, of 1 88 Critique of Pure Kant the impact on it of ether vibrations, yields, for prod- uct or resultant, light itself something of the mental of course, as is the brain its source somethmg of it, and something outside the mind as is the bram, as also, as perceived, perceived as outside. All this being so, let us observe in passmg, that light, as mental, yet that nothing of mind or con- sciousness, nor yet anything of ether vibrations, proves to be itself in the border country between mind and matter and must, itself and sight together, hold in their embrace, did man but know it, the solu- tion of the long vexed problem of the relation of the former to the latter. They are the bridge to take us over from the unequivocally mental to the am- biguously physical, — as would be discovered, would but some master mind in philosophy exploit them to exhaustion. Most certainly a wealth of revelation in this direction is in store, at the present moment little dreamed of. And here is to note again, what has been incidentally noted before, that visual light as thus an event purely of the brain, eye, and ether vibrations, and one as outside the mind as the brain is, and though mental, yet nothing of mind or consciousness, is nothing subjective as is the academ- ic claim that it is; and it is but fooling with words and worse than foolishness as is assumed as much. If it were really something subjective, it would obtain within the mind, and as entertained in con- sciousness, entertained as within it. But it is not so entertained, but is perceived as out of it ; and no human mind is superhuman enough to realize any logical connection between a thing within the mind 1 1 \ 1^ 'V* Only External World Absolute Perceived 189 and its being perceived as out of it. It is simply a rank assumption as is alleged there is any. I re- peat that any such is absolutely not thinkable, think- able as realizable. And yet that light is nothing subjective, nothing of the mind, or of the mind's constructive action as positively constructive, it, still as of the brain, is something mental and to be cognized by the mind as still may be reflected objects in a mirror, yet that the mirror had nothing to do with their origin or nature. And this is exactly the situation. The mind Sstill has cognition of light yet, that it is nothing within the mind, nor of origin or nature with which the mind had anything to do ; and has cognition of because something mental, mental yet that nothing of mind or consciousness. And it is light an illusion that the mind has cognition of, and an illusion be- cause what is the mechanical involved is not per- ceived exhaustively. And what I have said of light is true, of course, of the color green which, in a way, is a form of light. Green is no more due to the any constructive action of the mind than is white light, and for the same reasons ; as, for the same also is it cognizable and an illusion. In one case as in the other, it is from failing to perceive rather than from positively constructively perceiving that there is illusion. It is from failure of action on the brain of the ether vibra- tions involved in red and blue that green is seen in- stead of white light ; and again it is only from fail- ure of perception of the ether vibrations involved in 190 Critique of Pure Kant the color green that ever green itself is seen. And, finally, it is only as there is such failure all along the line to perceive the mechanical exhaustively, and motion as motion, that not what only in external perception is ever perceived is the external world absolute. So now, it only remains to repeat, what was said at the beginning, that what only in external percep- tion we perceive is the external world absolute, something of it, save only as the any illusion besides, we may perceive from not perceiving that world exhaustively as it is mechanical, — all of which is luminously illustrated in the case of the cube and the ring. In external perception, everything we perceive we perceive without illusion, everything except what are but accidents of what we must perceive to perceive anything at all, must to perceive at all. Thus ex- tension, figure and so on are perceived for such as they are in themselves and as positive attributes of the outlying world absolute — which they are; but the accidents of these, nuch as the extent of the extension or the figure of the figure, these, together with motion, are often not perceived for such as they are in them- selves, and are the spring of all external illusion. We know the external world absolute immediately for such as it is in itself so far as it is extrinsically mechanical — save only the accidents of that mechanical, and even these we may know, at least mediately and ultimately; so that there needs be, at last, no delusion, even if always and ever illusion. So that, in any large perspective, the consciousness may be said to deliver truly even if but truly at last. That because something absolute is not perceived for what it is per se, therefore is it not perceived at all! that because I cannot determine whether the object of my vision be horse or cow, therefore I do not perceive the object at all! — this is Kantian logic and doctrine — and could anything be more utterly senseless? XIII Persistence of Perception by the Mind vs. Persist- ence of Impression on It But now, to come back to the primary demon- stration, and aside from all corollary demonstrations under it which we have indicated, the primary one, namely, that every instant that we perceive the cube, or whatever else of the world of our external per- ception, we have perception of such, primarily at least, only as we have perception of the external world absolute, something of it, very it itself — to come back to that, and it is to be noted that it will, of course, be said in criticism and objection that it is the scientific fact and explanation that only as what we recognize as the cube of our recent illus- tration is but an impression made on the mind by the outlying world absolute, and that impression understood to persist and to be perceived in the in- terims between the cube being once at any point in its circuit, and its being at the same point again, could there possibly be either the illusion of the ring or any explanation of it. But wait. May not this scientific fact, as it is said to be, and explanation of it, be grave scientific error ? To begin with, that there is ever an impres- 194 Critique of Pure Kant sion directly made on the mind by the outlying world absolute, more than on a mirror by the objects it reflects — and here by external world absolute I am meaning world external to man, to man as body and brain as well as mind — is pure brazen assump- tion as in preceeding chapters I have sought to make evident ; it is nothing better. It has not one fact nor one warrant in reason, in its support — not one. Or then again, as there might be that impression, but made indirectly as made first on the substratum to mind, the substratum to mind of body and brain — where and only where, is ever impression directly made by the external world absolute — and then on the mind, that it is even thus at last an impression made on the mind by the external world absolute, is but stark naked assumption, still. Or then, yet again, and anyway, as there might be that impres- sion made either directly or indirectly on the mind by the external world absolute, that it is that impres- sion that obtains first, and only afterwards perception, and the perception only perception of that impression, instead of the reverse and that it is perception that first obtains, and the any impression itself that is aftermath, is, too, a claim without a shadow of warrant. And then, that is necessary to the momentary persistence of perception of an object as the latter is suddenly withdrawn; that is necessary, for ex- ample, to the ring of our recent illustration, and to the explanation of it, momentary persistence of an impression rather than of perception, persistence of perception of its own inertia as it were, independent Persistence of Perception 195 of any antecedent impression in the matter, is quite stark naked assumption, indeed, at its climax. These all are but postulates meant to be taken as truths, of course, yet that they are groundless, every one of them. Now, to the contrary of them all, what, and what alone, as I have hinted, is necessary to the momen- tary and waning-to-extinction persistence of percep- tion of an object as that is suddenly withdrawn, is the momentary persistence of perception itself in- dependent of any antecedent impression ; momentary perception persisting of its own inertia as it were; and this you have anyway, whether persistence of impression, or not. That, even as there might be, and must be, and is, of very truth, persistence of im- pression on mind or brain, it yet is not, in any case, to it that is due momentary persistence of percep- tion of an object, as suddenly the latter is with- drawn. This much is evidenced and proven, prima facie, in this : — If it was an impression of an ob- ject, say of a horse, once seen that momentarily persisted, yet quickly fading completely out, like a snuffed candle, as suddenly he was withdrawn from view, then there would be no memory of the object, no memory of the horse, for memory of the horse is impression of him, either on mind or brain, re- tained; and impression not persisting, then no memory; and no memory, then no reminiscence, for there can be no recall where there is nothing to re- call ; and there can be again entertained in conscious- ness the object and horse, only as again the actual object and horse is brought objectively before the 196 Critique of Pure Kant mind. However, we know from experience that having once seen an object, a horse for example, that we do have a memory of it, and can recall it — which only proves that the impression was retained; and that it was not it that, though momentarily per- sisting, quickly faded away, but that, as the only alternative, it was the perception, and the perception only, that momentarily persisted and then quickly passed into nothingness. Then, besides, as I have said, momentary persis- tence of perception of object or impression you have, anyway, whether of impression, or not. For per- ception is mental activity; and, like any other activity, takes time, once excited, to subside. There is no mere dogmatic assumption about this as there is about the mind being acted on and impressed by the external world absolute; nor as there is, again, about the persistence of such impression being necessary either to existence of an aftermath of momentary persistence of perception of the object, or to the explanation of it, in respect of both of which, as I have pointed out, there is only the rankest assumption. There is none as to its being persistence of perception, for, as everyone knows, there is no activity under the sun, of which we have knowledge, but which, as I have said, takes time to subside. A pendulum, disturbed from the vertical, takes time to recover that vertical. The glassy surface of a body of water, ruffled by a pebble thrown on it, takes time to resume its original condition. A ball, shot from a rifle, comes to a standstill, again, only with the lapse of time. Persistence of Perception 197 And so mental activity, once set up by the per- ception of the outlying world absolute takes, itself, too, time to come to a rest. If it did not, it would be an exception, and the only one in all Nature. And indeed, not unlikely, as the ball, shot from the gun, would go on forever but for the resistance of the air, so that particular mental activity once set up in the perception of an object might go on for- ever, might the mind endure forever, but for the resistance of other objects pressing for recognition. When, then, we consider that there is not one single fact in unequivocal evidence, nor one unques- tionable warrant in reason to sustain the doctrine of direct action of the external world absolute on the mind, and of impression made thereon by it; con- sider, indeed, that all fact and reason, rather are positively against such doctrine, and even to the ef- fect that what is first in historical order is p>erception of that world, and then impressions on the mind, as there are any at all, following what is first that perception; and consider that an aftermath of but momentary persistence of perception of object as the latter is suddenly withdrawn, cannot possibly be due to persistence of impression, both since only as im- pression is indefinitely persistent is memory and reminiscence possible, and since, again, momentary persistence, at least, of perception, a mental activity, must, barring extrinsic interference of course, be regarded, like any other activity, inevitable, or it would be an exception to all other activity once set up ; — when we consider all this, the utter want of force, or of reason, to the criticism and objection 198 Critique of Pure Kant in question, is only too apparent that the latter should be for a moment entertained. As a closing remark, perhaps it should be said that nothing of the foregoing disputes that what is perceived makes impression on the mind, makes such by reflexive action on it ; but what is disputed is that it is impression on the mind by the external world absolute that first comes before perception of it. It is only because the mirror is insensitive, while the mind is sensitive, that no impression is made on the mirror after reflecting or, so to speak, cognizing an object, while on the mind, after cognizing an ob- ject is made an impression. Don't forget for a moment, that, once the fact, or the establishment of the fact, of space absolute, with that instant is forestalled and blasted all opportunity for the disporting of itself, on the stage of actual performance, of Kant's contention that, there is a very important "class of ideas or forms which do not come by experience but through which experience is ac- quired"; don't forget that with that instant, the above contention, if not shot into oblivion, is at least pre- cipitated onto the junk-heap of old and exploded silly philosophical ideas. i ! it Let there be no mistake; and I remark right here and now that to insist on space absolute is not neces- sarily to insist on space absolute as outside the mental altogether, but only as outside everything a development of the mental, as outside mind, outside conscious mind, outside all human mind. XIV The Sensibility No Passive Faculty of the Mind, and Neither That nor Memory Any Faculty of the Mind At All But may someone ask, — If there are no effects or impressions wrought on the mind by the external world absolute, what has become of the mind's faculty of the "sensibility" ? Well, had it ever once existed, it might be in order to inquire what has be- come of it; but, as it is, all that can be said is that it is non est. When anything of the external world absolute at any moment impinges on the body or brain, themselves a part of that world, with the result of a response accompanied by consciousness, the reflective intellect, particularly the peculiar re- flective intellect of such men as Kant and the aca- demic philosopher in general, construes it as the passive receptivity of a department of the mind, and dubs the department "the sensibility." But there is no evidence, in fact or in reason, in support of the notion of any such faculty of conscious mind. That there is, was Kant's, as it is the academic philosopher in general's pure assumption — nothing better. But then, even supposing there were something such faculty of the mind, what business had Kant to afiirm it a passive one? Assuming any one faculty active, the only consistent further assump- tion for him was that all others were: and as, anv 202 Critique of Pure Kant thereafter might be conjectured passive, assume it so only as proven to be such. But, again, even supposing it receptive, what grounds had he for understanding it to have only the dead receptivity — and, so, passive receptivity — of so much putty, or of a mirror of inorganic con- stitution, such as a glass mirror, rather than to have an active passivity — particularly when it is in alli- ance at least with what, the brain, has an organic and active constitution? What business, I ask again ? Even if its receptivity might be much that of a mirror, yet the very fact that that receptivity was in alliance with what had an organic and living consti- tution must argue that it conducted itself somehow differently from what, mirror-like, had only an in- organic and lifeless constitution; and how, differ- ently, if not in affording an active rather than a pas- sive receptivity, even if still a receptivity much that of a mirror ? So, what business I ask, even yet once more, had Kant, then, to affirm the sensibility to be a passive faculty with only the receptivity of so much putty, or of a mirror of glass? What grounds had he for so raw an assumption? Why, indeed, only such as furnished him by his inability to find space and time in the sensations ; and, again, by his perfect babel of confusion touching a priori intuition. But now, in the next place, as to there being, after all, even any such faculty of mind, answering to the sensibility, — this is to be more than doubted, as I have already hinted. And, in truth, there is Sensihilty Nor Memory Faculty of Mind 203 not the least substantial thing in evidence to justify the proposition that there is. None, any more than there is of the susceptibility to effects or impressions of a glass mirror to the action on it of objects com- ing before it as they are reflected by it. This is to say, that it would be as rational to assume that objects acted on the glass mirror be- cause it cognizes them as it were, as evidenced in its reflection of them, as to say that the external world absolute acted on the mind with effects or impres- sions on it because the mind cognizes that world. The latter acts on the body and brain with effects or im- pressions — of course it does ; and there is the sensi- bility, if it is to be called such. But the substratum to the mind is not the mind itself — is it ? — that is to say, the body and brain are not — are they ? Will anyone contend that they are ? And again, because a telegraphic instrument a thousand miles away responds with a click to the electricity acting on it, would you attribute sensi- bility to that telegraphic instrument? Why more to brain and body because they thus respond ? Or, why more, at least, unless, unless, brain is some- thing mental, and the primordial mental, mental yet that nothing of mind or consciousness, while the telegraphic instrument is understood to be nothing mental at all in any form ? But, even then, as sensi- bility was to be accredited to the brain what is mental, the primordial mental, it still would not be faculty of the mind, since the simply mental, the pri- mordial mental, is nothing of mind or consciousness — nothing, at least in actuality. M. 204 Critique of Pure Kant No, the sensibility is no faculty of the mind and is but an attribute of the brain, as neither is memory any faculty of the mind but, in a way, of the bram again. Reminiscence — that is a mental power. but memory is no more such than is the registration by an Edison electric phonographic cylinder of your voice and words such. To revive anything of the memory or registration in the brain, you call mto exercise the mental power of reminiscence. To re- vive anything of the registration on the cylinder, a crank, or the like, must be turned. They both are simple events of recall of what are registrations tn matter, nothing more. And yet in every text book of mental philosophy the world over you will find both sensibility and memory rated as attributes and powers of the mind! — will, so utterly shallow in fundamentals is the academic mental philosophy uni- versally dispensed in school and university. What you gather from a statue of Beethoven to suggest to you Beethoven, you gather from an impression on matter; you do not pretend that there is any mentality an actual entity there in that impression and identified with it as the source of what you gather from the statue to suggest to your mind Beethoven ; rather you would say that that suggestion to you of Beethoven was what your own mentality and mind constructively put on the im- pression, a purely mechanical thing, made on (or in) the marble or whatever material worked by the sculptor. Just so, what you now gather from an impres- Sensibilty Nor Memory Faculty of Mind 205 sion made on your brain by some event of yesterday then coming within your cognition, as you in con- sciousness recover that event, you gather from an im- pression on matter again, namely, your brain; and no more should you pretend that there is any mind an actual entity there, — and which you call memory, — in that impression and identified with it and the source of your possible recall of that event, than you do in the above case of the statue of Beethoven; but rather should you, as in the above case of the statue, assume that that suggestion to you of memory was what your own mentality and mind constructively invest the impression with. The two cases are perfectly parallel, with the exception that in one the impression is made on matter ex- ternal to the brain, and, in the other, on matter that is the brain itself. They both are purely impressions made on matter — nothing more; and the impres- sions themselves purely mechanical. Alike their common denominator, so to speak, is matter, and to be stated in terms of matter; and their numerators the mechanical, and to be stated in terms of mechan- ics. In a word, there is no more mind about memory than there is about a statue — not a whit. The Primordial Mental, what is the mental in Its first estate and void of conscious mind, may be understood to be as definitely defined, the Soul, which we hear so much about but never before with any pre- cision defined. "The understanding does not derive its laws from Nature, but prescribes them to Nature." (Kant) And here you have it again — the inevitable notion running through all the Kantian doctrine, and all the critical literature of Kant's apologists and critics, notion of the absolute divorce of man and Nature, mind and matter, the spiritual and the material. The understanding does not derive its laws from Nature, truly enough, for its laws are the laws of Nature, itself (the understanding), a part of Nature. But if its laws are the laws of Nature, itself a part of Nature, then it does not, of course, prescribe them to Nature. We do not know everything, not primarily because finite, but primarily because consciousness is but a development and an aftermath; and, wherefore, noth- ing ktwws everything, and only something does every- thing without knowing that it does anything,— the childish and silly academic overevaluation of the im- portance of consciousness to the contrary, neverthe- less. XV Demonstration of Kant's Categoricals or the Sort of Nothing the Origin Primarily He Assumed for Them. Now what is a categorical? Or, first, what is the function primarily, if not indeed altogether, of the understanding? Speaking loosely, it is to enter- tain as such, or as in the abstract what is an idea in the concrete. More strictly, it is to entertain as being thought what, or the idea of what, as not being thought is still sensuously experienced, realized, and perceived. Thus a bird has sensuous experience, realization, and perception of space, but has no idea of space as such; has no capacity to stand it off as it were, and holding it in perspective, entertain it in the abstract, entertain it as being thought which pre- cisely, as I said above, is the function primarily at least, of the understanding, but v^hich the bird is without. Such function is discharged by some faculty as it is very the sine qua non desideratum of all possibility of higher mental activity; it is the Rubicon to be crossed, or the activity of the reason is impossible. It is not by the "sensibility'' dis- charged, which is why Kant could not find certain things "given" in the sensations. And by what faculty, then, is it performed if not by that one ac- credited the next higher, namely, the understanding? 2IO Critique of Pure Kant And, indeed, this may be presumed even the latter's sole function — in any event, its primary one. But even as its sole one, it is a function of credit enough for any faculty, one of all the distinctness and dignity as attaches to any ; and its having any other is extremely doubtful. It is very difficult to see how anything of a synthetic, at least of a conscious syn- thetic, judgment is involved; and it must be ac- counted pure assumption as is claimed that any is; for it is no hard and fast line that can be easily drawn between the understanding on the one hand, and the imagination and the reason on the other ; so that to what extent anything like synthetic judgment may not fall to the office of the latter, it is impossible to say, — Kant's and the every academic philosopher the world over's confidence to the contrary notwith- standing. But be that as it may, the primary function at least, of the understanding, as is not to be disputed, is to negotiate the abyss between the unbeing thought and the being thought, and much in effect, to convert the former into the latter ; is to entertain as such, or in the abstract, anything, or an idea of anything whatsoever that is matter of sensuous experience, realization, and perception. This, then, being the office, the primary office at least, of the understanding, what is a categorical, or the sort? A categorical is properly, a genus or form of the mental, a species of which is necessary to sensuous experience such as is ours; and the genus itself necessary to all possibility of higher or rationalistic thought. It is the species, what is noth- Kant's Categoricals 211 ing of the being thought, that, under the spell of the understanding, — spell of the a priori intuition of the understanding if you choose, — is stood off and, as held in perspective, suffers a lightning change into the genus, what is the being thought, and the abstract. Thus quality is such a genus of form of the mental, of which resistance a quality is a species, itself necessary altogether to such as is our sensuous experience, at the same time that the genus quality, itself is necessary to all possibility of subsequent and higher or rationalistic thinking. Or again, quantity is such a genus, of which dif- ferent measures of resistance each a quantity is a species, and the differing measures of it so many dif- fering species, as it were, necessary to sensuous ex- perience such as is ours, at the same time that the genus itself of quantity is necessary to all possibility of subsequent and higher or rationalistic thinking. This is to say that it is rather much something only connoted by what is matter of sensuous experi- ence than what precisely is matter of sensuous ex- perience itself that, entertained as such, or as an ab- straction, is a categorical. Moreover, as thus defined, the categorical claims space and time as of its kith and kin, — and why not? Why should not anything and everything functioning as a categorical be understood to be such ? What is to debar that we consider space and time each respectively as at once genus and species, each as at once species of itself its own genus? Why are not they within the fold when they, just as much 212 Critique of Pure Kant as their any content, are the unbeing thought, and matter of sensuous experience such as is ours, and necessary to all possibility of subsequent and higher or rationalistic thought ? True, space and time can- not, because pure negatives, positively connote any- thing beyond themselves, while their contents of extension, figure, resistance and motion are things positive and can. But it so happens that it is not as space and time are genera, which are things beiiig thought, that they are matter of sensuous experience as nobody doubts that they are, but as they are things unbeing-thought — which is why Kant could not find them in the sensations — and, in effect, species that they are matter of sensuous experience So that as they, respectively, function, in effect, each both as genus and species, why are they not as much categoricals as their any content thus functioning but doing so in technical form more literally as species and genus ? And this they are. But however properly space and time should be classed as categoricds, still Kant did not so class them ; and as he did not, I might have let it pass, as it is not vital to anything for which we are contend- ing — but I would not. But now with the relation between the categori- cal and what is matter of sensuous experience being such as I have indicated, and with that between species and genus that of the latter a development out of the former, is it anything better than madness to think to wedge in and drive home, as Kant thought to do, and as his disciples after him think to do, a complete rupture of the inviolable continuity Kanfs Categoricals 213 between the two, and an utter repudiation of all de- pendence of whatsoever categorical on sensuous ex- perience? For this precisely, is of Kant's doing as he, through the agency of his conjured up fantastic a priori intuition, springs upon the scene, as obtain- ing independent of sensuous experience, and actually, indeed, in advance of such experience, a genus what, in truth, obtains as genus only as first both in logical and in historical order obtains its species; springs upon the scene a genus, say a genus quality, what is quality a genus only as first, in logical and historical order, obtains its species a quality; and this, at the same time assuming the genus to obtain in condition of absolute divorce from the species of that genus, say the genus quality from its species a quality, such as resistance, which in reality itself the species, first exists in the consciousness only as first it is experi- enced. Nor does it argue anything adversely that there should be nothing of the being-thought, which the categorical is, in the sensuous experience which itself is the unbeing-thought ; and there is nothing of such in actuality there, more than there is of the plant in the seed, wherefore, still, there should not be every dependence of categoricals such as quality, quantity, time, space, or any other, on the sensuous experi- ence; yet which, as there is, those categoricals can- not possibly have their primary origin of a priori intuition independent of such experience, as that they may have and do have was Kant's contention. There may be nothing, there is nothing, of the house, as such, in the wood of which the house is 214 Critique of Pure Kant built, which there is not, in fact, no more after the house IS buih than before; and still only for the wood could there once be the wooden house ; it could have no existence independent of the wood. More than this, it is even absolutely impossible that there should be anything of whatsoever categorical or the sort in the sensuous experience; and still is it only impossible, again, that the former should be inde- pendent of the latter which, itself as the fact, only makes so in turn that any such categorical should spring of a priori intuition independent of sensuous experience. And now, finally, as was said in regard of Kant's chimerical notion of space and time, so now I say of his similar notion in respect of quantity, quality, and so on, — How not only false but silly any such doctrine as the possible rupture of continuity be- tween the senses and the understanding such that, as was found even in flower in the understanding or the reason, whatsoever, that yet the stem and root thereof did not reach back into the sensuous experi- ence for life and support at least, if not for origin altogether! And again, how not only false but silly the notion that "the categories are the a priori conditions of possible experience" as Kant would have it, when they are only the conditions of *' transcendental or the higher than" sensuous experience, and nothing the conditions of the sensuous experience itself at all. The mystery of mysteries is how anything came to be, how anything either mind or matter came to be, not hovf a universe and such as ours came first to have being. This the one mystery before and over all. But "No man shall see my face and live/' readeth the Hebrew scripture; and how anything came to be — that is the face no man shall see and live. And yet Kant assumed to have seen it and to rec- ognize it as conscious mind identifying that with Su- preme Being as author both of Himself and of the manifest universe — yes, assumed, did Kant, to have seen that face yet that, thereafter, still he lived! Zounds ! man — Do you think you can reason back from the conscious mind to comprehpndmg the form it assumes in the primordial mental? Well, you might as soon think you could reason back from the chicken full-fledged to comprehending the form it assumes in the germ-cell; or reason back from the plant to comprehending the form that assumes in the seed; or even reason back from the disposition of the men on the chess-board, at the close of a game of chess, to realizing what were the earliest moves in it: it simply can't be done. The *'form" the mental manifest as conscious mind or reason assumes m the primordial mental is absolutely as inscrutable to us, as is the form the physical chick assumes in the germ-cell, or as the plant assumes in the seed. So that it is nothing to the prejudice of the mental assuming a more primordial form than the human Reason that it should be absolutely inscrutable to us what definitively that form is. XVI The Primordial Mental the Intrinsic Nature of the External World Absolute But now, I am even yet ill content but as I go one notch still further, and contend that not only do we know, know as perceiving is knowing, the mechanicality of the outlying physical world abso- lute, and thus know something of its extrinsic nature, but that also do we know, know as rationally knowing, something of its intrinsic nature even be- yond knowing body, as such, to it as connoted by resistance. And to begin with, we will ask, — Must we not know what the nature of that world could not pos- sibly be, and that it could not possibly be anything of mind or consciousness, since each and every man is immediately and directly conscious only of his own mind and consciousness, and nothing of that of his any neighbor, while of the world of his external per- ception, whatever it is, he is directly and immediately conscious ? And again, must we not know, too, even that it could not, by any possibility, be anything of the contents of mind or consciousness, our mind or consciousness, since, then such would be something contingent, contingent on mind or consciousness, and it is a world understood to be a world absolute that is in question? 2l8 Critique of Pure Kant And yet again, and next, what must we not think it positively to be, only what yet could it possibly be, but still something mental, if only of the mental, the mind, as it is said, can take cognizance, and of noth- ing so radically and totally different as is what we recognize as the physical vulgarly conceived, to be ? What even do we not know it to be, and know it to be mental, since it is absolutely unthinkable that that should not be mental that was author or origin of consciousness itself the mental, and of which we know the Absolute Reality — which is one with the external world absolute — to be the author or origin of, or that would not obtain in the universe which we know that does as very your own and my own con- sciousness are in attestation thereof; what but the mental, still that we had no realization, realization sensuous or transcendental, of it as such mental? And why not, indeed, still something mental, yet that nothing of mind of consciousness? We can have the wood without the wagon of which the wagon is made ; or have the iron without the locomotive of which the locomotive is made ; and why not have the something mental without having such as thinks, or such as is being thought, but out of which these are wrought or evolved ? Why must we not, indeed ? Certainly, when we can have no direct conscious- ness, no direct cognition of one another's mind or consciousness, to then still insist that what we have direct consciousness of, direct cognition of, as we have, of something of the external absolute, is yet mind or mind's offspring absolute, as an eminent The Primordial Mental 219 philosopher of the 17th century maintained, and even maintained that that mind, or its offspring, was very that of the Being of God, — is certainly grossly illogical to the last degree, to say the least of it. However, if it cannot be mind, or thought, thought as being thought, it can, as I have said, still at least be, with no logical inconsistency, that the source of these and which then must be understood as primordial mental. But do you, the reader, exclaim that, logical in- consistency aside, it is positively out of all reason, and utterly incredible that conscious mind and what we recognize as the physical should be of one and the same stuff or origin ? But with what grace, this objection? Are you not reiterating and reiterating, until it is positively nauseating, the hackneyed as- surances that the universe of Being is infinite, and we but finite? And how, pray, could the universe be infinite, but as there were infinite extremes of form or modes of existence of the one identical es- sence or Being? And are the extremes of form or mode of its existence, the extreme of consciousness on the one hand and of the physical on the other, more than infinite ? Or, if not, and are but infinite, though all of that, how should you, yourself but finite, even then expect ever to realise those ex- tremes as extremes of but the one stuff ? Either they would not be infinite extremes, or you would not be but finite, as you did. Besides, why should you balk at affecting to realise the identity of stuff of mind at least, if not of consciousness, and the physical when there are scores of other things you are exercised 220 Critique of Pure Kant with never a doubt that you realize, still that in fact you never do, you mistaking repeated observation of events for realization of them. Besides, again, when you have reduced matter from the grossness of the vulgar sense of it to elec- trons in the scientific sense of it, you have made so tremendous an approach to reducing it to something of very the airiness of mind itself that any affected shock, or disgust, at their having a common origin, or being hut diverse forms or aspects of one and the same thing, or the like, comes to being not only out of all reason, but near to being positively silly. So, I say again, that if that of the external world absolute of which mechanicality, which is to say of which form and body, are attributes, is not mind, or consciousness, it still may, with no logical inconsist- ency, and indeed may not save only with the most positive logical inconsistency be that out of which these may be evolved or developed, and be the simply mental in the primordial form of it. And then what, besides, is at least negative proof, if not proof altogether, of as much is that the con- . scious mind, the only conscious mind we know any- thing about, namely, our own, was never once known to be the conscious author of anything of the physical but the mechanical physical, never once of the living physical, — never, still that we are encompassed by infinitely diversified forms of such ; and that there is absolutely no logical connection, whatever between the consciousness or conscious mind which we know something about, itself utterly impotent to produce the first thing of the living physical, and the any The Primordial Mental 221 other and fancied consciousness or conscious mind, finite or infinite, which we know nothing about itself competent to produce the living physical — no logi- cal connection whatever, as I have before pointed out. It is at least negative proof, for it argues nega- tively at least that some other mental, if the mental at all, than the mental as conscious mind, is the au- thor of the living physical ; and if other mental, then who shall say it is not what may be understood as the primordial mental since that is the only other form of the mental than such as conscious mind of which we can have any conception ? That it is not the mental of the form of conscious mind that is the author of the living physical does not debar that it should still be the mental that should be; for that the mental obtains only of the form with which we are familiar, it would be only arrogantly and stupidly dogmatic to assume. And a primordial mental is at least one such other and which is even conceivable by us, even though only in a very general and limited way, and which, as the only form that is, is the one that in all logical consist- ency we are bound to recognize as the author or origin of the living physical as we are to recognize any mental as being such, which we must since we can think of nothing else in reason as being. And for other reasons already stated we must. But a primordial mental, as void of conscious mind, cannot be to conscious mind itself, that is, such as cosmic or infinite mental can not be to human or finite mental, simply as greater stream to lesser, as 222 Critique of Pure Kant has been the time immemorial dogma not only of the theologian but of the academic metaphysician or philosopher as well. Rather is it as stream to eddy of the stream, involving a vastly greater difference than as were it simply larger stream to lesser and little stream, and but a magnification of the conscious mind — as were a stream itself but a magnification of the eddy, which it would be as impossible as ab- surd to think it was. Moreover, what only, though, perhaps, but nega- tively flatly contradicts that such as the primordial mental to such mental as our conscious mind is but as greater stream to lesser, is that the conscious mind the only mind we know anything about was never once known to be the conscious author of the living physical, and that between the only conscious mind we know any thing about itself utterly impotent to originate the living physical and the any fancied cosmic or infinite mind we know nothing about itself competent to originate such physical there is abso- lutely no logical connection whatever. The mental, then, that is author or origin of the living physical must be something very diflferent. Besides, still further, as our conscious mind as a development is but one of infinite many forms of manifest existence, why should it not be as impossi- ble, — except in a general way such as that there is a primordial mental — to reason from them what precisely is the form of unmanifest Being, or Being void of all form behind them, as it is to reason from the many forms, such as light, heat and electricity, of physical energy what precisely is the form of en- The Primordial Mental 223 ergy or the energy wanting all form, behind them. The latter, the scientist, does not attempt to do, nor think to do ; and doutbless because he anticipates the vanity of it; and anticipates as much, doubtless again, because his is a level head which usually the academic philosopher's is not. That the any other more final form of the mental than conscious mind should, in the consciousness of the latter, assume what is no other form at all but only another meas- ure, perhaps an infinite measure, of the same form, is clearly to be ascribed to his utter want of sense of the requirements of the situation, and of sound logic as well. The truth is, it is absolutely impossible to argue directly back from the circular movement of the eddy to the linear movement of the stream ; for there is absolutely no necessary logical connection between them, and is none simply because other influences are tributary to the circular movement of the eddy, and might be even altogether its cause. And, in- deed, so much is the equivalent of this so as it applies to the conscious mind and the mental out of which that is a development, that arguing directly back from it to the former is much like arguing back from a degenerate form of the mental which the conscious mind a development must be understood in a sense to be, to the mental in all its integrity and prime as is to be understood of the primordial mental. It cannot be done. Only as there is something like col- lateral suggestion to appeal to, can be established a high probability of a more and the more final form of the mental. 224 Critique of Pure Kant But if the conscious mind from being but a de- velopment, and consequently little better than a degenerate form of the primordial mental, can view the universe but as from an angle or point out of focus, as it were, and not from all angles, or point altogether in focus, as might it be as viewed from the vantage point of the aboriginal or primordial mental, it still is nothing to debar contemplating the universe, so far as it was contemplated at all, with all the integrity and serviceability for practical pur- poses as were the point of view that of the aboriginal or primordial mental itself. Thus, to illustrate, a circular hoop, seen at an acute angle with the line of vision looks to be elliptical in form. Now the ellipse which the circular hoop looks to be is just as genu- inely an ellipse as were the hoop itself one; and is just as serviceable for all purposes of mathematical calculations as if it were. And so with the cosmos or universe as contemplated by the conscious mind, though not entertained exhaustively, may yet, so far as entertained at all, be contemplated with every principle within the purview of such mind in har- mony with that mind. So that that the cosmos is in harmony with the reason is not to be cited as proof, or even evidence, that the conscious reason is the final form of the mental. This, then, what is the mental but in its primary stage of being is what we can but understand is that more than simply the mechanical, more than simply the form and body of the external world absolute, which we may know of it, know as rationally con- ceiving that more, though not as sensuously and The Primordial Mental 22S perceptually realising it as that. And as it should be that, it is the primordial mental that is the concrete of every idea in the concrete, whether of the idea of the mechanical or any other ; that is that which dis- tinguishes an idea in the concrete from what is only the same idea in the abstract, distinguishes an idea as unheing thought and informed of what we recog- nize as the physical and recognizable by all men in common, from one only being thought and recog- nizable only by the man who thinks it ; and that is that wherefore the external world of the unbeing- thought thought as informed of what we recognize as the physical, endures from everlasting to ever- lasting, while what is only being thought, and even the thinker or thinkers of what is only being thought, which and who are only developments out of it, come and go like flecks of foam on the crests of the waves of the sea. And, indeed, the Primordial Mental understood as the Absolute Reality must well answer even to what is very the Soul — the Soul, which we hear so much about, but which, yet, nobody has been quite able to define. Yes, the Soul. It is this what, as the primordial mental, and very the Soul and nothing of mind, or thought as being thought, that is in the inventor's new idea and fresh invention as outwrought, and wherefore it survives him, and all men have cognition of it still, even though the inventor himself passes away ; while had it remained in his head an idea and invention, as what was only being thought, he himself perish- ing, perish with him would the new idea and fresh 226 Critique of Pure Kant invention. But it survives him, and all men have cognition of it still, because what it is invested with, what embodied of, is what as the primordial mental and Soul is one with the one Absolute Reality which "was before ever the world was" and will be when the "world is no more"; is one with that Reality which is Itself what is unbeing-thought thought and in the concrete, and Itself the unthinking, and void of everything of the being thought. And it, is, in- deed, very that Absolute Reality Itself, very Itself, and in virtue of the most primary movement itself of which, of centrifugal and centripetal, worlds re- volve about suns, and suns about suns ; and in virtue, again, of the return stroke of the centripetal of which and the resulting impact of that Reality on It- self, life, mind and consciousness in ascending order ensue, what are as much the triune spectrum of the primary contingent realities of that Absolute Real- ity and Primordial Mental as are red, green, and blue the triune spectrum of the primary colors of visual light. In short, the primordial mental is what we, as rationally knowing something of the outlying Abso- lute Reality, may know it to be, though unable to sensuously realize and perceive it to be; what we may, with every reason, be said to know even as knowing something intrinsic of the outlying world absolute, and even something intrinsic beyond body (as revealed in resistance) as well as know some- thing extrinsic as in sensuously realizing and per- ceiving its mechanicality. And if this be so, then by so much still further The Primordial Mental 227 was Kant wandering like a mad man as he declared knowledge of objective truth absolute to be impos- sible, and that, with the rest, we know nothing of the external world absolute, nor even of our own exist- ence. What stupidity it is for one to deny there is any- thing beyond the senses and sensuous experience when only is he enabled to deny there is any thing beyond as he has that itself beyond the senses and sensuous experience with which to make the denial! But it is not one whit more rational to contend that on what is beyond, the senses or sensuous experience is de- pendent. Synonymous with the Absolute Reality and Prim- ordial Mental may be understood the Soul to be; and to be, as is that, the origin, origin and not the "maker," of the manifest universe; and to be again, as is that, unconscious until it first comes into collision, or face to face with itself when then is it first con- scious, — Kant, and even the whole academic world to the contrary notwithstanding. "The Soul knows no persons," says Emerson. And the Primordial Mental, being unconscious, Itself "knows" no persons. So that seer and philosopher in this fundamental matter are in perfect accord. XVII The Mind of Kant's Exploitation a Sheer Abstrac- tion, a Phantom of His Riotous Fancy. It comes, indeed, to this, that the mind of Kant's exploitation was a sheer abstraction and thing of his fancy ; it was nothing such as that, a multiplicity of examples of which in the concrete, we are familiar with. And it was as such, mind a manufacture, not mind a thing evolved by a force operating from zvithin at all. It was the finite mind m^de finite, not finite necessarily because an evolution and a develop- ment. In fact, how could it well help being nothing better ? For it must be remembered that Kant was a theist in the true-blue orthodox sense; and that with every theist in his day, the manifest universe was a snap creation, of a Creator operating from outside; as much outside as a house builder of the house he builds. With every then theist, everything of earth, sea, and air, man and his mind with the rest, had their origin with an author Himself outside his work. It is only of late years, that theists driven to bay by evolutionists, or by the doctrine of evolu- tion itself, have immured their Being of God within the confines of the manifest universe, and as there working from within outwards. Of course, then, Kant, with his view of the universe, man's mind with the rest, as being much a piece of carpentry, 232 Critique of Pure Kant would naturally treat the mind of man — as he af- fected it was it he was treating, and not something purely of his fancying — as a bit of carpentry; would analyze it, pull it to pieces and put it together again as might a carpenter take down a house of his erection, and then reerect it. And what Kant naturally would do is precisely what he did do. His man's mind man was a manu- factured article, as he believed ; and how else, in any consistency, in his exposition of it, could he treat it than as an article of manufacture? And not only was it a made mind, and finite as made finite, but it was an adult mind with which Kant dealt, as another has pointed out before me. But this does not half state it ; for it was an adult human mind that he con- templated and exploited. That is, to Kant's think- ing, the mind of a polype was nothing less than an adult human mind in miniature ; — which indeed it is with every Kantian academic professor of philoso- phy, the world over, this minute. The only differ- ence between a polype's mind and an adult human one, in other words, was with Kant and is with every Kantian, mostly that between a small house and a large one, or a twenty-ton locomotive and fifty-ton one — a difference of mere bulk and capacity. It is a difference implied in mere growth in the sense of increase of volume with proportionate augmentation of power, and nothing of evolution or development as these are of any meaning distinct from mere growth in the above sense — which dis- tinct meaning, however, they surely have. And it is so with every Kantian academic at this late day The Mind of Kant's Bxploitation 2^^ because he has .yet to emancipate himself from the thraldom of the idea of the universe an arbitrarily made universe ; has yet to be philosophically "born again," and into a knowledge, or, more, into a real- isation, of the truth as it is in the doctrine of the uni- verse an evolution; and because has not, as a consequence, rid himself of the inane and mischiev- ous notion of the primacy and transcendency of con- sciousness and the conscious mind. But anyone who, in this day and generation, es- says the role of metaphysician, and yet accepts not robustly, but gingerly that doctrine as might it scorch him, his prejudices, or his theories, had better never been born — the world has no use for him. All this talk about the reason obtaining even logi- cally a priori, involves the reason as at least logically the "Maker" of the manifest universe. And so Kant said "the reason made the universe," — "marf^" the universe! No man nowadays of any breadth of mind worth the mentioning discourses deliberately on a "made" universe. There is that, the primordial mental or whatsoever, that is the origin of the mani- fest universe as the egg is the origin of the chick. But as who would say the egg "made" the chick, so who should more say the primordial mental, or whatsoever, ''made'' the cosmos or manifest universe? I : Synonymous with the Primordial Mental may be un- derstood the Soul to be ; and it is the Primordial Men- tal, or the Soul that is the origin, the origin and not the "Maker," of the manifest universe; not the Maker, as nothing is the "Maker of it — Kant to the con- trary notwithstanding: and it is that Primordial Mental or the Soul and Absolute Reality, unconscious, that is that origin, that Reality unconscious until It has first made impact on Itself , — Kant, again, and the whole academic world, to the contrary, nevertheless. XVIII The Academic Legend of Mind Knowing Only Mind Only Academic Nonsense But now it is not to be passed over without further and final remark that, of course, Kant's doctrine of "phenomena," phenomena understood to be the mind's offspring which they are, and only which he maintains we can and do perceive in ex- ternal perception, is but over again, only in other words, the hoary old academic legend "that mind knows only mind." But, surely, what force is there to that proposition when no one mind knows directly even mind save only each man his own mind, and only with some doubt of his knowing even that ; and knows, even indirectly, any other, only in virtue of the agency of an outlying world absolute which, Kant pretended, we didn't know, at all, didn't know even that it existed, still, too, that he had the hardi- hood to afifirm the existence of what he said we couldn't know to exist. I say, it may be a question whether any mind even knows mind and its own mind; whether knows more than the thoughts and feelings of mind. Here is a shelled pecan nut, a nut perhaps the most difficult of any from which to extract the / 238 Critique of Pure Kant kernel unbroken, which yet is before me in that con- dition, and my wonder; but which still affords me not the slighest idea of the nature of the machine that accomplished the feat of its liberation. I con- fess I can not even infer whether it was a cutting, or a crushing, instrument that was involved. Why more should the thoughts and feelings of the mind afford us the slighest idea of the nature of the mind of which they are the yield as is the shelled pecan the yield of the machine? And yet, the world over, the thoughts and feelings of the mind are, and have from time immemorial, been taken to indicate the mind itself. To say that they signify intellect and sensibility means no more than to say that shelled pecans indi- cate a machine — which they may not after all, as something like a frost may have shocked them ; and even if they must mean a machine, nothing is re- vealed of the nature of it. However, this point aside. And even then a queer situation it is altogether for the boast of the mind's knowing only mind, still that it alike was Kant's, and is at his moment, the world over, the academic philosopher's gleeful assurance all the same. For what business had Kant, or has any one, to assume, in effect, that there may not be the mental, the mental but not as mind or consciousness, and of which these are a development, which we may, as perceiving, know, must know, as ever we know mind, as we may know, must know, the wood of which the wagon is made, and even may know in- The Mind Knowing Only Mind 239 dependently of knowing anything of the wagon, as ever we may know the wagon ? — yes, and even may know the mental, yet knowing nothing of mind or consciousness as we — to change the figure — may know, that is, visually perceive or cognize, water as ice, it then being visually cognizable, but may not as it is a gas, it then being invisible? What business, I insist, had Kant to assume that there may not yet be this mental, even which should be the primordial mental, which we may know even as ever we directly knew mind, or even as ever we did not ? Nor is this situation and illustration altogether a fantastic one either ; as, for reasons already given, much earlier in this writing, it is more than likely that it is precisely the one that obtains. Assuming that we actually perceive very the outlying world absolute itself, then that its substance is somehow mental of a sort, is absolutely unavoidable and in- disputable as is to be understood that the mental can take cognizance only of the mental, and of noth- ing so radically and altogether different as the physi- cal is vulgarly supposed to be. That the mental may have cognition only of the mental may still be a question not to all eternity to be decided. And, yet, that two well-nigh infinitely distinct and different Absolute Realities should obtain, the mental and something else, would seem, if not impossible, then at least improbable beyond measure. But, anyway, as there should not be, the sole possible alternative is that what would appear as the substance of the world of our external perception must be something mental, and mental of a sort more primary than 240 Critique of Pure Kant mind and consciousness, and of which these are a development — a view, by the way, which alone, consists with the doctrine of evolution. With the probabilities immensely to the effect of such primordial mental, mental yet that nothing of mind or consciousness, what shall we say of the brazen front that still assumes that mind knows, has cognition of, only mind ? At the least, anything but rational is that academic as well as Kantian assump- tion that "mind knows only mind/' Doubtless, but for the vicious and inane doctrine of the primacy and transcendency of the conscious- ness, or conscious mind, which both reigned and ruled in Kant's day, and does, in good degree, to this hour, the proposition would not have com- manded the complacent credence it has; nor more, Kant's metaphysic itself. But, anyway, spite of all one might know that I have been saying, you have yet only to ask — What do we, in external perception, really know ? and goes up the shout from every university chair of philoso- phy the world over — "Know? why, know only mind !" Or, "Know ? why, know only states of con- sciousness !" as some would put it — as were that to ring a change for the better on "mind knows only mind." Better? But how better? How more illu- minating, or more true? If by states of consciousness is meant, — which, of course, is — different states of it, then if all we know is states of consciousness we don't know much of anything at all, and never will. For what intelli- gent meaning has the phrase, anyhow? None; or The Mind Knowing Only Mind 241 then as it has any, only at the most, but an elusive and illusory one. "States of consciousness" ! — why, there are no such things. Consciousness is one state, it is not many. You might as well talk about states of a mirror as it reflects one object and another. The mirror as a mirror is one, one state, if you please; it is a constant, no matter how many or diverse the objects reflected in it. And so is consciousness one or a constant, no matter how many the objects or subjects successively, or simultaneously occupy it. On the contrary, then, of our knowing only states of it, what only, in external perception, we know, is the one state of consciousness with diversity of content; and which one state of it even, we should not know of save only for content, any more than should we anything of reflection in a mirror but for the objects in reflection in it. But what is that content? Why, something more still* than mind or consciousness. It must be for reasons already given. So that the phrase, "Know only states of consciousness" has no advan- tage over "Know only mind." Kant even asks — "How can the mind know noumenon [reality]?" as though our possible ina- bility to know how, was anything in disparagement of our knowing the fact, and knowing more than mind, as noumenon or reality was more. But there are a thousand and one things we know nothing the how of, which yet the fact of we know even without a misgiving. But the primary question is, not how can we, but, do we know "noumena." 242 Critique of Pure Kant As to the query — How can the mind know noumena? — it needs only to be met by the per contra one of — How must it not? However, once more and to start again. I want to ask what business had Kant, or has any one dog- matically to affirm we know only mind, or states of consciousness, when for aught anything we know, there is such, for example, as the property of hard- ness outlying the mind, and property of the external world absolute, whose effects or impression, still, on the "sensibility," in the any event of its action there- on, must, and again for aught anything we know to the contrary, he hardness; and when as there is, our any experience, consciousness, or knowledge of hardness, must be experience, consciousness or knowledge not only of the effects or impression pro- duced hut, also, of the outlying hardness of the ex- ternal world ahsolute producing the effects or im- pression of hardness, as well? In other words, how should that, which should have for its effects or im- pression on the mind that of hardness, debar that, producing the hardness, being itself hardness, and our knowledge of hardness being knowledge of that hardness at once that we have knowledge of hard- ness an effect or impression? . And who knows there is not that hardness outlying and absolute? And until we know there is not, we do not know that, in knowing the hardness we feel, we do not know more and know the hardness outlying, as well. If we don't know beyond knowing states of consciousness, we at least don't know we don't know beyond states of 'consciousness; and until we do, it is but an unwar- Thc Mind Knowing Only Mind 243 ranted do^rmatic assumption that we "know only States of consciousness," "that we know only mmd. In fact, the run of the logic — heavens ! logic, must we call it ? — would seem to be about this : — we don't know, as knoztnng that we know, hardness as more than a state of consciousness; ergo, what only we know is hardness a state of consciousness! Think of that for applied academic dialectics ! Isn't it almost enough to give one the "horrors" ? And yet it is just such as this for coherent thought be- hind the academic dictum that what only we know are "states of consciousness." And, by the way, and indeed, do we know only as we know we know? Does the oyster know it knows? And even yet, does it know nothing? Does the squirrel know it knows ? And still, does not the squirrel know something ? We may know only states of consciousness ; but, as I have said, we don't know zve don't know only such, and until we do, a decently modest metaphysic should bar us from the precipitous dogmatism that only such we know. We may know only states of consciousness; but not only most arbitrary is the inference that only such we do; but worse than this, the dictum is posi- tively silly, an academic classic though it be. Besides, after all and over all, the probabilities are immense that we do indeed know more ; and as we do, the stupendous error of Kant's doctrine that we know, as perceiving is knowing, only "phenome- na" is indisputably in evidence. The probabilities are immense that we do, indeed, know more — if we 244 Critique of Pure Kant may be said to know short of knowing that we know. But how foolish to talk about the squirrel knowing nothing because it doesn't know it knows ! But one consideration further. Is visual light a state of consciousness, and but such ? And as cog- nizing visual light, do we, as cognizing is knowing, know only a state of consciousness, know only mind? If visual light is a state of consciousness, then it is something mental, and we have to account for how should something mental be the product or resultant of what, ether vibrations and eye and brain, are only physical, — the accounting for which, as the mental and the physical are to be understood to be wholly distinct and different from each other, is simply an absolute impossibility. Besides, as something mental, mental as sc^ne- thing of mind or consciousness, or the offspring thereof, how should there be direct consciousness of it, when of the thousand and one such about us we have no direct consciousness whatever? Or, then, on the other hand, as visual light is something physi- cal then the mind as having cognition of it, may, as cognizing is knowing, know more than mind and know the physical as that more. Take either horn of the dilemma you please. However, if visual light be something physical, then it is nothing subjective, as is the stock scientific and academic claim for it, more than are ether vibrations themselves, or than is eye or brain itself; and you might with as much reason, talk about subjective iron and objective iron as about subjective light and objective light. Indeed, such discourse as that mind knows only The Mind Knowing Only Mind 245 mind, or only states of consciousness, is but a shuf- fling of words, with a glamour of intelligence cover- ing the densest ignorance of the situation. What is the fact of the matter is, that visual light is, as is also the physical itself, something of the mental yet that nothing of mind or consciousness, or of offspring of the same; and that both are cog- nizable by the mind simply because both are some- thing of the mental; and visual light, as something of the mental yet that nothing of mind or conscious- ness, but of which still the mind has cognition, is something more than such mind or consciousness, or a state of consciousness, of which the mind has cognition and which the mind, as cognizing is know- ing, knows more than mind, or a state of conscious- ness. Altogether, then, so utterly groundless, puerile, and dogmatic the academic legend under discussion, that only that it was Kant's dictum, and from one point of view, very the backbone of his philosophical extravaganza, and besides is backed up withal by about the whole academic philosophical world, would I ever have returned to the subject again in this particular form at this last moment. Only as there is something sensuously realizable in a proposition is there anything realizable in it at all; and the sensuously realizable is only such as it is realization of what is external and absolute. Neither is there conviction of the truth, or of the right, of a proposition but as there is something in it of the sensuously realizable of the external and absolute, and of the mechanical of the external and absolute. fzcih^y Let us not forget that matter in the scientific sense of it as reduced to the airiness of electrons is an im- mense stride towards obliterating the assumed im- passable chasm between mind and matter. And let us not forget that we do not, in consciousness, in any comprehending and realizing sense, bridge the gap even between oxygen and hydrogen on the one side and water on the other with any so great feJteity that we should go into hysterics over the seeming non- intercommensurability of the physical and the mental. XIX Original Versus A Priori Intuition But now while there is no a priori intuition ex- cept, as has been explained, in so qualified and meagre a sense as practically to make it, in any gen- eral statement, a negligible quantity, there yet ob- tains original intuition, and as independent of sensu- ous experience as was assumed by Kant of his a prio- ri intuition. But it is nothing a priori as obtaining in actuality even logically, much less historically, prior to sensuous experience, and on which the latter is dependent, more than is a flower a thing obtaining a priori as obtaining in actuality prior to the leaf and on which the leaf is dependent. It is what, if not independent of sensuous experience for its life, is yet so altogether for its character, as is a flower in re- spect to a leaf. It is such that in virtue of it, as ex- pressed through the understanding, is entertained in consciousness, for example, an idea of space as an idea, and of space as such, space as space, space as an abstraction. It is such, again, that in virtue of it, the various ideas, notions, or abstractions as they emerge from the understanding, are taken up, shuf- fled, and orderly disposed, and from them evolved the innumerable dicta of the reason. There is this original intuition, original as distinct from the pri- mary one in virtue of which latter the senses afford 250 Critique of Pure Kant their revelations of an external world absolute. And it obtains in actuality, even logically, only subse- quently, and with racial animal life, only ages subse- quently to the primary intuition; and so could no more have a hand in the authorship of the senses or their functionings, than can or does a flower a hand in the authorship of the leaves of a plant, or their functioning. Such intuition as that we are considering is a spontaneity with a start at the level where sensuous experience leaves off; a start not a whit below, nor earlier than that. In other words, it is a function functioning from a depth reaching down to the ele- mentaries of space and time and their necessary con- tents, necessary as necessary to the realization and perception of space and time themselves, and to all thinking; but not to a depth as including these, as Kant contended in respect of his a priori intuition. It implies faculty a fisherman as it were, that fishes down to the bottom of the pond, but fishes up noth- ing of the bottom of the pond itself, as Kant would have it, that his a priori intuition does. And indeed, such would seem the constitution of things that only as these elementaries underlying and constituting life and mind are first brought round and thrust objectively before the latter, like objects before a mirror — or only as such as they are — is possible even consciousness itself at all; much less any consciousness of the elementaries themselves, and a first knowledge of them even through sensu- ous experience of them. A man may see from the point of his eyes for- Original Intuition 251 ward, but he cannot from one behind them, and see what is behind them, and see the back of his head. He cannot even see his own eyes with which he sees all before him, — but yet which, in effect, Kant overworked his fancy, and strained his every nerve to do, and which every philosopher before him and since has striven to do. For have they not, as they fancied, explored mind, and attempted to realize and define it, as men of science have sought to define life? And with what better success one than the other? Has the latter done more than to name the conditions of life? But is but to name the conditions of life to define life itself? And has the metaphysi- ician as to mind succeeded any better ? Is the multi- plicity and perfect Babel of contradicting systems of metaphysics any evidence of it, forsooth ! On the contrary, no better than can a man see the back of his head, or his own eyes with which he sees all before him, can he know, as conceptionally knowing what is behind mind, or even know mind itself with which he knows, or may know, all com- ing after it in evolutional and developmental order. Is to know of the fruit of a tree to know of the tree itself, except as you might have been helped to it by some collateral knowledge such as having seen or known of trees before ? But if not conceptionally to know even of life and mind themselves, then of course, not thus to know of what comes before them ; and there is that antecedent to them, antecedent to our life and mind at least and to the manifest uni- verse generally, or they are not one and all an evolu- tion and a development, which we know they are. 252 Critique of Pure Kant However, at least what obtains, or may possibly obtain subsequent to whatsoever elementals, the mind can come into conceptual knowledge of and do so in virtue of original intuition active through the imagination, the understanding and the reason. But such original intuition of the origin and limi- tations to which I have confined it, and as running only down to, or welling only up from the depth of the ending of the sensuous experience, realization and perception, is in strong contrast with Kant's our a priori intuition which he fancied ran down to, or welled up from, all the depth there is! Moreover, it is only because that such as the former obtains as active through the imagination, or the understanding, or through both jointly, as you please, that the notion or idea of whatsoever that is matter of sensuous experience though nothing of the being thought, is ever once entertained in con- sciousness as the being thought, and thought the thing it is — an idea of space as space, for example. It is only because of it that whatsoever, such as an idea of space, is stood off as it were, and as held in perspective as something as being thought, is ren- dered in consciousness in terms of space as such, terms of space as space. But now it is only because of it, again, that what may not be a matter of sensuous experience but is what is an idea only suggested by what is matter of such experience, is in the same way enter- tained as such, or as the idea it is, as when, for ex- ample, the idea of uniformity of succession of an- tecedent and consequent of a single class of phe- Original Intuition 253 nomena is suggested by what is even not a uni- formity of succession within that class as is the case as the idea of it is suggested to a horse which has once been lashed by a whip, and which thereafter, inevitably with the upraised whip, expects to be lashed again, yet that he not always is. It is only because of it that an idea only thus suggested may be entertained as such idea, may by man but may not by the horse which has not original intuition in the form of the understanding as man has. And still again, it is only because of this intuition active through faculty of the reason that such as an idea entertained as an idea, (that is, as an idea as being thought,) that such as the idea for example, of uni- formity of succession within a class of phenomena, be given another lift and be entertained with refer- ence to all classes of phenomena, which then would be what, as entertained, would be law entertained. And, in general, it is, only because of such in- tuition, still of the limited nature and scope as I have defined it, but as active through the reason, that whatsoever once having gone into the hopper of the "understanding" — or imagination — and reissuing only to be understood as ideas or con- cepts as such, is, by the reason itself exploited after the manner and with results such as becomes that faculty and are familiar to us. In all this disporting of original intuition of itself there is experience only of an idea of a thing, as the thing is as fundamental, or more so, than what we have experience of in sensuous experience; there is no experience of such anything itself of 254 Critique of Pure Kant which the idea is an idea; no experience of funda- mental absolute reality; no experience of anything such obtaining independent of being thought of, or thought. There is, for example, primarily experi- ence, what is sensuous experience, of space itself, something fundamental obtaining independent of being thought, which afterward in logical and his- torical order, and in virtue of original intuition, only an idea of is entertained or had experience of as being thought of or thought, but nothing of ex- perience of space itself had, which is to say nothing of sensuous experience of that, space itself, at all of the idea of which there is thought or transcen- dental experience. But on the other hand, for example, again, there is no experience of law itself, that is to say no sen- suous experience of it even possible, but only in virtue of original intuition an experience of an idea of law what is to say, only a transcendental experience of it possible. For there to be experience of law itself there must be sensuous experience of the uniformity of succession not only of phenome- na within the classes falling to our experience, but also, of such as obtains among all classes that make up the manifest universe; — which could be possi- ble, of course, only with all those classes, likely in- finite in number, falling within our sensuous ex- perience, what, truly, enough, is impossible; and so the experience of law itself impossible. And the same as said of law is to be said of causality, in- finity and the like. So that original intuition as to anything of ex- Original Intuition 255 ternal perception is of avail as affording experience only of ideas of it, and of ideas as ideas, together with their exploitation ; but not as affording experi- ence of that absolute whatsoever itself of which the ideas are ideas, as affording which it would be only sensuous experience that afforded it. And man himself, with all his original intuition, is no better off in this respect than the lower animal, the horse say. Even the horse, and then only in virtue of memory too, has experience of an idea, — though not of an idea as an idea — of uniformity of suc- cession of phenomena, but no experience of that uniformity of succession itself, which the man has no more than he, and which must be had to have experience of law itself. But what the man can do, and can in virtue of original intuition as active through the imagination or "understanding," which the horse (generally speaking) not having cannot, is to entertain an idea as an idea ; and also to think of the application of the idea of the uniformity of succession as obtaining with all classes of phenome- na as obtains with the comparatively few falling within his experience; to think of the application of the idea, still that not experiencing the applica- tion any beter than the horse. But to think of it is not to think, think as realizing it, but rather is an infinite remove from so doing. However, even only to think of it — which is done only in virtue of faculty of original intuition — is nothing less than a fresh and original mental event enough to afford faculty all the function to distinguish it as faculty independent, in a way, of 256 Critique of Pure Kant such as is involved in sensuous experience, even though it fail of function of the scope of thinking, thinking as realizing, the universality of the appli- cation — v^hich it ever does, Kant to the contrary notwithstanding. But now note that original intuition affords the simple thought of a thing, and carries, in conscious- ness, nothing with it of authoritative assurance as it were, of its objective reality absolute, as were that being thought of, that itself as being realized. Two and two as being five, can be thought of; but that carries, in the consciousness, in the moment, nothing of evidence or proof or force of conviction of it as absolute mathematical reality which — such reality — we know it is not. And so, only as em- pirical evidence at least, or proof ab extra of some sort is afforded, can anything, simply thought of, rank as knowledge of that thing, knowledge of it as objective truth absolute. Such evidence or proof is not forthcoming either as to two and two being five, nor more as to such as law, or cause, or in- finity, being objective realities absolute. Moreover, if the merely being thought of has no carrying force of conviction of truth or right, then what has? Why, the being thought, thought as being realized. And how this? Why, as the being thought of is accompanied by the not being thought but experienced, as is the situation in sen- suous experience, and when there is exj>erience — and in which, reahzation and perception — of something external and absolute, and that some- thing the mechanical external and absolute. Original Intuition 257 So that it is the mechanical external and abso- lute that is the exciting cause, and the sensuous ex- perience of it the anal source, of all conviction either of truth or of right ; and with which our any thought of this or that, in virtue of any original in- tuition, reason, or what you will, is accompanied, and wherefore we have thought, thought as real- izing anything whatsoever. Mind, I do not say the mechanical is the excit- ing cause, or the source of truth or of right them- selves, but of our conviction of them as such. Doubt it? But observe that even when I see visual light I have no sense of it as anything mechanical that I see, and which, in fact, it, consciously at least, is not; nor sense, again, as I see it, that it is the me- chanical that is the cause, the exciting cause, and the sensuous experience of which the source,^ of what I see, yet that both of which it is. So in just the same way when I have even a moral, to say nothing of an intellectual, conviction, I have no sense of it as anything mechanical that I am aware of, and which, most assuredly, it consciously is not ; nor sense again as I have the conviction, that it is the mechanical that is the cause, the exciting cause, and the sensuous experience of which, is the source, of my moral conviction, yet that both of which is the case. Indeed, every faculty whose function is not the sensuous experience of something of the absolute external mechanical itself is faculty a "mount of transfiguration" of something of it — and it may be both. Thus, the eye and a certain area of the 238 Critique of Pure Kant brain is the seat of faculty that is faculty a mount of transfiguration for the conversion of certain ether vibrations, themselves something of the me- chanical, into visual light; at the same time it is faculty for experiencing the mechanical external and absolute itself both as motion, and as exten- sion and figure, if not of resistance. What has now been said is all to say that orig- inal intuition is faculty only for suggestion; but that all our most unwavering conviction of two and two being four, or of things equal to the same thing being equal to each other, or of any logical step in- volved in the solution of a problem of the higher matRematics, or of any dictum, even, as attending a quesion in ethics, is due inevitably in every in- stance in some indispensable part, or altogether, to a sensuous experience of an element in them — and that element something of the mechanical absolute — to be met with in the sensuous experience which the sensuous experience of affords all, the conviction of the truth of right felt in them respectively as they are entertained. And it is just because there is nothing of the mechanical in the distinctive sine qua hon element of law, the element, namely, of universality, falling within the sensuous experience that, in the primary onset of consciousness in the matter, we are not as flush with an unquestioning awareness of the veritable being of law absolute that we are of our own being, or of that of space and time and their contents of extension, figure, re- sistance and motion. It crosses nobody's mind, primarily, to have the Original Intuition 259 least misgiving as to the veritable being of these latter; and simply because they are things them- selves of absolute existence and things themselves experienced, sensuously experienced, not merely ideas of them that are, only ideas of which original intuition can supply. It is only as the academic dips an oar into the tranquil surface of the ixx)l to disturb it, that one thinks to doubt where he is at, whether in space and time, or himself nowhere, and they themselves in him rather than he in them. So no one would think to question law, which original intuition suggests, as an objective verity absolute, widespread as the universe, either only could he sensuously experience (which would be to experience something of the mechanical) uniform- ity of succession that wide-spread — which he might, could only he sensuously, as already pointed out, experience all instances of it throughout the universe ; or as an alternative, did only the element of universality itself the distinctive one of law, have something of the mechanical in it and that fall with- in his sensuous experience. But as it is, with neither event coming within his happening, he, in virtue of original intuition, can only think of the verity of the fact, and believe it, but does not feel it as unquestioningly realizing it as he does space ani^ time. Observe, it is not what is the mathematical prob- lem, nor what the logical step in its solution, nor what the moral matter in question, involved, that is in point; but it is the conviction that is; and that, 26o Critique of Pure Kant as that obtains, reaches back, every time, into the sensuous experience, and the sensuous experience of the external mechanical absolute. Of course, this rather startHng doctrine of every intellectual and moral conviction being, as it is a conviction, due to sensuous experience and the sensuous experience of the mechanical is not only what Kant's transcendental aesthetic is in flat con- tradiction of, but what every academic transcenden- tal sky-flyer will reject with disgust, and every moral rhapsodist will treat, if not with riotous de- rision, then with unutterable scorn. But there is no possible escape from the truth of the doctrine, all the same. But now in spite of all this, Kant in effect tells us he will seize the reason, or a priori intuition if you will, and walk off with it shuffled of its mortal coil of the senses, and see what it can afford us of truth independent of that vulgar association of these same senses, vulgar as he rated them com- pared with faculty of a priori intuition, the reason, or whatsoever other ! — tells us this, as though such faculty were like a ball shot from a gun which, once it gets its start, thereafter continues to move of its own momentum independent of the original force being still applied; that is, as though the reason, once its activity gets a jog from the sensuous experience, may of its own force there- after be active and effective independent of every- thing of the sensuous experience as still a factor having a hand in results; tells us this, so utterly complete the possible 'divorce, as he viewed it, of Original Intuition 261 the activity of the faculty of a priori intuition, or of the reason, or of whatever other higher faculty than the senses that you will, from the senses themselves and from sensuous experience itself. But was there ever a proposition more ground- less, more impossible of achievement, more stu- pendously false ? — and this, too, yet that about the whole world of academic conjurors in metaphysi- cal philosophy has been of one mind as to its pro- fundity and validity, and as to the immensity of mind that could conceive it ! For is it not their own words that "metaphysic is the occupation of the reason with itself"? And then again, is not that world this minute on its knees in adoration of the immensity of mind of Immanuel Kant? For is it not, I say, their own words that "metaphysic is the occupation of the reason with itself" ? — not the occupation, the reader will note, of the whole mind with itself, but of only a part of itself, namely, the reason, with itself; and to determine what, in the absence of continuity of that part with the rest of the mind, that part may function to deliver of truth or of right ? And what is that but an implied pos- sibility of divorce of higher or highest faculty from the senses and sensuous experience, and that higher or highest to retain still its integrity, spite of that divorce, as also to function of itself of its own force independent of the senses and sensuous experience? What is it but this, and right in the face, too, of the fact, fact well known to every intelligent mind, that while, in the absence of the higher faculty, may obtain intact and unimpaired the senses and sensu- 262 Critique of Pure Kant ous experience, still with missing the latter is in- evitably absent altogether every trace, as might be, of the higher (?) faculty, — so utterly dependent is every other power of mind on the malodorous lower ? What is it but this ? — yes, and wherefore, precisely, that academic metaphysic has been the conspicuous failure that it has been ; that the meta- physician has brought upon himself the ridicule that he has; and that the jargon of the conflicting meta- physical schools has been the scourge of philosophy, and philosophy itself, been the jest of all intelligent mankind. But it is to be observed that such assumed pos- sible absolute break of higher faculty (higher as it is called, as though faculty that could only think of life was higher than faculty that could con- sciously experience and realize it!) with lower (which is only a piece with the view of that abso- lute divorce of mind and matter) had its origin with the childhood of real knowledge in the ages when theology was in the saddle and riding mankind to death, and overriding all independence of purely academic philosophy. Still, all such complete chasm between two things, chasm once thought so self-evident is, with all the more intelligent and well informed, fast becom- ing obsolete; and all such as a priori intuition of space and time, or whatever else independent of the senses and sensual experience, and even in advance thereof, becoming at least questionable if not ridic- ulous. And now as to the immensity of mind of Im- Original Intuition 263 manuel Kant who could conceive the absurd propo- sition in question, — well, immensity, indeed, of mind of a man who had not discernment enough to know that but for an outlying world absolute, he could not possibly ever have known of the existence of another human being than himself ! nor discern- ment enough, again, to know that but for the possi- bility of our knowledge of objective truth absolute, he could not possibly have known even of his own existence! Immensity of mind, I should say! I have said Kant's discovery of the primacy and transcendency of the concept what is next door to the primacy and transcendency of consciousness. Yes, and I must still believe that only that Kant was overwhelmingly impressed and assured of the latter, foremost of all childish inanities, might he never have set out on his crusade of impeachment of the validity of the primary consciousness; of denial of all objective truth absolute, even that of his own existence; and of the apotheosis of the un- derstanding, the reason, and the chimerical a pripri intuition, all at the expense of insult to the dignity and validity of the senses and their deliverances of an external world absolute and of our perception of it. However, let that pass. What is of immediate moment here is that the only intuition of any standing in court is sim- ply original intuition, which is nothing of Kant's a priori, and is faculty a fisherman as it were fishing down to the bottom of the pond but fishing up noth- ing of the bottom of the pond itself, nothing of 264 Critique of Pure Kant the fundamentals underlying life, mind, and con- sciousness; while the senses, "the poor despised and rejected of men," which yet may become, even in the view of philosophers themselves, "the head of the corner," alone are faculty a fisherman fishing down to include that bottom, and bringing to the surface to our realization and appreciation the very bottom of the pond itself, the very fundamentals underlying life, mind, and consciousness. With consciousness a development and an after- math, we have the only situation that effectually dis- poses of the problem of evil, the time immemorial scandal alike of the universe and of theological meta- physic. It is simply idiotic to keep on insisting on the pri- macy and transcendency of the consciousness or conscious mind when it stands right in the way of the solution of the problem of evil — the evil there is in the world outside what man himself is responsible for; and when, with consciousness or conscious mind but an aftermath and a development, there would not even be the problem. "What fools these mortals be," says Shakespeare. And sure enough, what fools! Our life and mind to any fancied cosmic or infinite life and mind are as eddy to the stream, and not as lesser stream to larger, little stream to greater, as has always been the view taken not only by theology, but by academic philosophy as well. And yet are not light and heat and chemical force, etc., as the scien- tist's forms of energy to any fancied energy as out- side or apart as it were from its forms, much as eddy to stream rather than as lesser stream to larger? And what scientist would think of energy's any forms as affording a clue to energy itself as outside or apart, as it were, from all its forms? And why more should our life and mind and the lives of all existences be supposed to supply the least clue to any fancied life and mental outside or apart from, as it were, these in- finitely diversified manifest forms of it? No, our life and mind to any fancied cosmic or in- finite life and mental are not as lesser stream to larger merely, but as eddy of the stream to the stream, which involves a vastly, if not infinitely, greater dif- ference. XX Summary in Brief and in Part of Conclusions in Philosophy and Criticism Arrived At And here at an end — for the most part, — our Critique of Pure Kant, so far as Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is concerned, except for a sum- mary, in brief and in part, of the conclusions in philosophy and criticism arrived at, which are these : — (i) That metaphysical philosophy has hith- erto been a failure and the disgust of all intelligent mankind, outside philosophers themselves, (a) be- cause the latter have scouted the notion that physics could afford any clue to the solution of problems in metaphysics — which might be excusable a hun- dred and more years ago when physics was of little account, or in its infancy, but which in these days of modern science is simply idiotic; and again (b) because they, the philosophers, have set out with assumptions rather than only with most absolute knowledge, only with which had they, as philoso- phers, any business to set out, — and Kant himself was no exception : (2) That what is of most absolute knowledge are the three great facts, great primary facts of consciousness, namely, fact of awareness of one's 268 Critique of Pure Kant own existence, fact of external perception, and fact of recognition of other minds and their experience, minds other than each its own mind and its experi- ence, facts with which, still, as simply facts of con- sciousness, and at the same time, as working factors in the solution of mind-world problems, has not ever yet one metaphysician set out in the whole his- tory of metaphysical philosophy, — Kant himself failing to with all the rest : (3) That the primary consciousness or con- scious mind is no positively constructive falsifier, and is at the worst but a negatively constructive such — is no positively constructive falsifier and well-nigh downright liar, as Kant would, as would also every genuine idealist, have us understand that it is: (4) That we may have, and do have, most absolute knowledge of objective truth absolute, not a little of it at least, nevertheless Kant's scorn of the possibility of any such knowledge, and scorn, by implication, of any knowledge of his own existence even: (5) That whether there is, or is not, an ex- ternal world absolute, and whether we do, or do not perceive it, something of very it itself, is crucial of the truth, or falsity, in its essential and vital part, of Kant's whole transcendental aesthetic, and of his whole metaphysic, in fact ; so that, as were proven an external world absolute, and our perception of very it itself, must be undermined, uprooted, and exploded that whole transcendental aesthetic, that whole metaphysic : Summary of Conclusions Arrived At 269 (6) That, in very truth, there is most abso- lutely certain an external world absolute, Kant's wavering, bewilderment, self-contradiction and ut- ter inability and failure to demonstrate its exist- ence, notwithstanding. (7) That in very truth again, we do, in ex- ternal perception, perceive that external world ab- solute, perceive very it itself, — Kant's most strenu- ous flat denial that we do, and mountainous effort to establish the contrary, nevertheless: (8) That even what only in external percep- tion we perceive is that external world absolute, save only what, besides, as illusion we perceive from not perceiving it exhaustively mechanically; which is to say, that nothing of Kant's phenomena do we perceive, and even that none such are there to perceive, however, still, that it was his long drawn-out agony of contention that such there are, and that we perceive them, and perceive nothing else; and however, still, too, that only as there are such, and we perceive them, and nothing else, is not his whole metaphysic but the "baseless fabric of a vision"; is to say this, and to say again, that the mind, in external perception, does not perceive posi- tively constructively, but only negatively construc- tively, constructively as it were ; all of which is say- ing, in short, that, in external perception, the mind functions as a cognitive organ or faculty simply, and not as a constructive one in the more proper and orthodox sense, at all, — yet that not only Kant assumed, but the whole academic world as- sumes and declares to the contrary, and that exter- 270 Critique of Pure Kant nal perception is positively constructive perception : (9) That that external world absolute of our external perception is one of the Primordial Mental, what is the mental, yet that nothing of mind or consciousness or of the offspring thereof; what is the mental and Itself the forever and forever changeless, as is Its activity the forever and forever changeful, and out of which — the latter — mmd and consciousness are evolved; yes, what is the mental and the Primordial Mental, and even the very foundations of the universe — yea, very the Soul of the universe; — still, yet that the only men- tal either at the foundations of the universe, or else- where, or at any time, of Kant's recognition is the mental as mind, consciousness, or their offspring: (10) That the most primary movement of that Primordial Mental, which is to say of the Absolute Reality, of which we have any hint, is that of cen- trifugal and centripetal, and in virtue of which, the movement, itself, worlds revolve about suns and suns about suns ; and in virtue again of the impact, in the return stroke of the centripetal of that Real- ity on Itself, and impact of the mechanical of that Reality, as exciting cause, on the wnmechanical of It, as predisposing cause, life, mind and conscious- ness result, — these being much the triune spec- trum, as one might say, of the Primordial Mental and Absolute Reality as are red, green, and blue, the triune spectrum of white light : (11) That the consciousness or conscious mind as being thus, with the rest, the outcome of an event, the event of the impact of the Absolute Summary of Conclusions Arrived At 2yi Reality on Itself, is a development, and as a de- velopment, then but an aftermath and nothing aboriginal and primary as was Kant's assumption that it is, and as is the whole academic world's echo of that assumption that it is: (12) That the consciousness or conscious mind is thus but a development and an aftermath, is even most absolutely demonstrable, as absolutely so as is any proposition in Euclid; — this, yet that not only Kant, but every academician the world over must be understood to join in a wild chorus of in- credulity, and shout of the absurdity of such a proposition; and following, is the demonstration: — Modern science informs us that visual light is due to the impact of ether vibrations on eye and brain. Vibrations are something mechanical. So that visual light is due to the impact of something mechanical on something. But science, again, in- forms us that to a change, itself something me- chanical, of the wave lengths and of the frequency of their impact, themselves (the wave-lengths and frequency of impact) also something mechanical, is due a change of consciousness, that is to say, of its content, from a consciousness, say of red, to a consciousness of blue, green or other color. But now, if to a change of the mechanical making the impact is due a change of consciousness, that is, of its content, then, prima facie, to the mechanical minus the change, that is, to the mechanical in statu quo, is due content of consciousness at all, and due consciousness itself at all, since we know the latter only as with content as we know reflection in a 272 Critique of Pure Kant mirror only as with objects before it for reflection^ But now again, consciousness due to the impact of something mechanical on something is consciousness preceded, oi course, by that something making the impact a^d on which the impact is made, and which as^receding, is itself the thing of Pr^^^^ ^ transcendency, and not consciousness hat is such which itself then obtains only as a development ^nd as only a development then only as an aftermath -- a devebpment and an aftermath of that rnaking the impact and on which the impact is ^ade; only a development and an aftermath and nothmg aborigi- nal and primary, -as was the proposition to demonstrate: this the proposition and demonstra- tion and which the following incontestable ac s only go to confirm, namely, fact that it is in perfect consistence with the universe an evolution, which it is not with the universe a snap creation, but fatally inimical to it; fact again, that between the consciousness or conscious mind our own, which we know something about, itself only com- petent as author or origin of the mechanical physi- Sl and utterly impotent as author or origm of the Zing physical, and the any fancied consciousnes or cLcious mind, infinite or otherwise which we know nothing about, itself competent as author or S of such living physical, there is absolutely no logical connection, none whatever, «f^«f '^^^ "°7 ' and if none, then some other mental, if the mental at all than as consciousness or conscious mind is uch author or origin of that Ij-i-iV^y-'^^'j'^^ only possible other mental as it is that void of con- Summary of Conclusions Arrived At 273 sciousness or conscious mind, it must be that, then, that is the author or origin not only of the living physical but also of the principles of the mechanical physical which, themselves the mental as conscious mind not being the author or origin of and only availing itself of combinations of in its authorship of anything mechanical, it must be the mental void of consciousness or conscious mind that is, and which, as it is, must logically and historically antici- pate the mental as conscious mind, the latter itself, thus proving to be but an aftermath and a develop- ment; fact, still again that the mental as con- scious mind, our own, the only such we know any- thing about, is, primarily, utterly incapable of con- sciousness unassisted from without ; while such men- tal as must the Absolute and Final Reality be, — must for it is absolutely impossible to understand that any- thing else than the mental should be author or origin of the mental, and most assuredly conscious- ness is what is mental — is capable of conscious- ness unassisted from without, or there would never be any consciousness in the universe, which we know there is, even very our own being in attesta- tion thereof; is capable unassisted from without as there can be nothing outside the Absolute and Final Reality to afford that outside assistance as every- body will allow, — which is to say that yet that the primordial mental as the Absolute Reality is capa- ble of consciousness unassisted from without, it still is so, as it would seem, only in the event of its being acted on, and acted on from within, and by itself on itself — acted on by itself for there is noth- 274 Critique of Pure Kant ing else to act on it — and as is so only in that event, it is, then, only in the event of an event that conscious mind obtains and as obtaining, obtains, too, but as an aftermath and a development, and nothing aboriginal and primary ; and (4) fact even still once more and finally, — and this is a clincher — that the proposition and demonstration renders readily solvable the problem of evil in the world, which never has been solvable and never will be to all eternity, with consciousness or conscious mind understood as something aboriginal and primal. (13) That consciousness is absolutely demon- strable as nothing aboriginal and primary, is quite enough of itself and alone, let go all other abundant proof, to render utterly impossible and absurd the whole Kantian metaphysic, a metaphysic which ac- cords pre-eminence to the concept — or a priori intuition assuming whatever form in the abstract or as being thought, you will — over idea in the concrete and as unbeing thought : quite enough, since the former involves consciousness which itself being nothing aboriginal and primary, the concept or a priori intuition assuming whatever form you will but involving it, can by no possibility, be any- thing such: (14) That consciousness may obtain as often as ever there is impact of the Absolute Reality on Itself, — or it may not; — only, as the former is the case, then it obtains cosmically, and our con- sciousness is one with that of the cosmos or uni- verse, our brain as brain, merely functioning neither as the origin of our consciousness, nor even Summary of Conclusions Arrived At 275 of its content, at ally but only as determining its con- tent such as it is; or yet, as still the former should not be the case, and the latter should be, then our brain as brain functions as the spring both of our consciousness itself, as also of its content at all, and of its content altogether, altogether, that is, both of its content at all and of its content such as that is, — the former though, and that conscious- ness obtains as often as there is that impact, be it said, being, perhaps, the more likely: (15) That the mind itself, in external percep- tion, is no more directly acted on, in the return stroke of the centripetal, by the external world ab- solute or external objects absolute then obtaining, which it cognosces, than is a mirror by the objects, which that cognosces as it were, as it reflects them, only the physical substratum, the brain namely, be- ing that directly acted on by that world or those objects; which being so, Kant's "phenomena" for this, still another, reason, are necessarily only the veriest fiction: (16) That space and time are primarily noth- ing of the human mind's conception, nothing of a priori intuition, nothing of forms of perception, as Kant would have it ; but things, from the first, exter- nal to the mind and absolute; and wherefore that they are, are we ourselves in space and time, and not space and time primarily only in us, as he would fain make us believe : (17) That, in fact, what there is experience of in the sensuous experience of space (and so of time), a notion, concept, idea or a priori intuition of 276 Critique of Pure Kant is no sensuous experience of at all ; and so, of course, prima facie, can, by no possibility, be a contribu- tion to — Kant, yet, shouting at the top of his voice that it is such contribution ; and the validity yet, of his whole metaphysic, touching space and time, and, indeed, of his whole metaphysic altogether, contingent on its being such, nevertheless. (18) That what are properly categoricals are only what are in effect, genera entertained as such, by the understanding, the basis of the species of which is thing absolute, and matter of sensuous experience and perception as much as are space and time — this still, yet for all Kant's attempt at the absolute divorce of everything of the nature of a categorical from the sensuous and the absolute of that sensuous, of which there is experience and perception. (19) That with the consciousness or con- scious mind but a development and an aftermath, it must be the un-being thought, or unbeing- thought thought, that is at the very foundations of the universe, and not the being-thought thought that is, as was the acclaim of Kant, as it is, too, at this hour, of the entire academic world, that entire world philosophical or otherwise. (20) That all conviction whether of truth, or of right, has both its exciting cause and its source in the sensuous experience of the physical and of the mechanical of the physical, so intimate, correlated, atid inseparable are matter and mind, the so-called physical and the mechanical of that physical, and the so-called spirtual ; — this, still that must be un- Summary of Conclusions Arrived At 277 derstood to stand aghast, and with unspeakable dis- gust at so startling a proposition, not only Kant, but the whole academic hierarchy of worshippers at the shrine of Kantian metaphysic. (21) And finally, that as was sought to ex- plain how things in external perception are as they appear, and not how they are not as they appear, as how they are not Kant sought to explain, it has been with the result, as hinted early in this treatise, that the plain-man, in the simplicity of interpreta- tion of his external perception is vindicated, and the primary consciousness proven no liar, — liar or stupendous falsifier at least, as Kant and the whole academic world of his following would have it that it is; while the academic philosopher himself in his cumbersome, labored, far-fetched, stilted and pedantic effort to explain such perception is shown to make himself simply ridiculous. These, in brief and in part, the principal con- clusions arrived at. Nor are we to be terrified that, in the light of them, the universe should ap- pear to be primarily, much a machine, a machine acting intelligently, with intelligent result, but void of intelligence; the fundamentals of it being unbe- ing-thought thoughts, and these in the concrete of the Primordial Mental, and all in a certain combina- tion itself unbeing-thought thought, and the whole driven by a blind power, precisely as is the case with any machine, and say a pin machine. In the latter, every piece and part of which itself is an un- being-thought thought, each in the concrete, the concrete of iron or steel, and all in a 278 Critique of Pure Kant certain combination itself unbeing-thought thought, the whole driven (usually) by a blind power of water, electricity, or some other, with the result — as the machine draws the wire, cuts it off of the right length, tapers it, points it and heads it and much more — of the pin machine acting in- telligently with intelligent outcome, but without the least intelligence, whatever. The only differ- ence between it and the universe is that the former acts, primarily, only mechanically intelligently, without intelligence, while the latter acts not only mechanically intelligently but, also, livingly intel- ligently, without intelligence. Meanwhile, the only difference, again, between the universe itself and the human being is that, while the former acts, primarily, both mechanically and livingly intelli- gently but without intelligence, the latter does it with intelligence superadded, though only within a very limited and comparatively narrow range, and immeasurably at the expense of power, it would seem, for authorship or origin over a wider field and without intelligence. And now, finally what, in the light of it all, is to be said of Kant? Why, nothing less of him as a philosopher than that he was the greatest romancer, whether in philosophy or out of it, that ever lived ; that for assumption, pure raw rank as- sumption, for sky-rocketing, contradiction, enigma, jugglery, puerility, and grotesque absurdity, he was certainly past grand-master of all of his guild, though others, Hegel for example, may follow him a close second. Summary of Conclusions Arrived At 279 And then to be said of his philosophy itself that it is of the cart before the horse variety in re- spect of about everything philosophically funda- mental; and the horse, too, not even then allowed to push before him the cart, but, instead, the cart forced to drag after itself the horse! In a word, realization is made to wait on conception instead of the reverse, and conception to wait on realiza- tion. For, as that philosophy would have it, the outlying world absolute gives us only the "matter" — and even that only remotely — and not the form, when, in fact, it, and it alone, for the most part at least, gives us both. For, as that philosophy would have it, both the perception of that world, and the external world of our perception itself, are at the mercy of the conscious mind, when in very truth it is the conscious mind that, primarily, is al- together at the mercy of the outlying world abso- lute, at least as to whether the mind is even con- scious at all, or perceives or knows anything at alj. For, as that philosophy would have it, mind con- ceives before it perceives, conceptually knows be- fore it sensuously experiences, that is, knows as conceptually knowing before it knows as perceptu- ally knowing. For, as that philosophy would have it, sensuous experience, realization, perception get its character from the knowing as conceptually knowing mind, yet that that mind primarily does not even exist for centuries and ages after the sensuous experience and external perception first has its existence ; gets its character from the know- ing as conceptually knowing mind, which Kant said 28o Critique of Pure Kant it did, which if true, there might be some reason in expecting, as he expected, and grounded his whole metaphysic-in its being true, that in knowing the knowing mind we might know of, yes and even have granted as falling to us, finally, such a thing as sensuous experience. And so on to the end of the endless chapter of the cart-before-the-horse metaphysic. And, then, finally, over all it is to be said of that philosophy, that, if the exploitation of the im- possible, such as is Kant's Critique of the Pure Reason, is found to end in scepticism, if by that you mean scepticism as to the living truth, then no wonder; or if by it you mean scepticism as to the Being of God, freedom, and immortality, then in- deed is there wonder, but only wonder that it should so end. The human Reason is altogether and absolutely impotent to reason back from the plant to its begin- ning in the seed — only for our observation of the sensible fact, in sensuous experience, could we ever know anything of it. And yet that same human Reason is altogether competent to reason back from itself to its beginning, and its beginning in con- scious mind the conscious mind attaching to Supreme Power! — this the attitude and claim of Kant; but could anything be more utterly and ridiculously shal- low? But it at least affords us another of the many like measures of the immensity of mind of Inimanuel Kant as logician and philosopher. The difference between a created universe and an evoluted one is the difference between the hen laying the egg, and the egg laying the hen. As to what or who in the latter case laid the egg, we are tempted to say nothing laid it, and that it was eternal from the beginning — or, rather eternal from no beginning; but that would be to assume to know something in the matter which we cannot possibly in any reason pre- tend to. Rather, then, shall we not say that that is to answer how anything came to be, that that is the absolutely inscrutable, that that is the "face which no man shall see and live?" — rather shall we not say this, and rest the matter right there? "A house divided against itself shall not stand.'* Scripture. Part II THE CRITIQUE OF THE PRACTICAL REASON And the Reason divided against Itself as Kant, in his discrimination of the Theoretical or Pure Reason and the Practical Reason, divided It against Itself, shall not stand — stand. Itself as of any authority. Its deliverances as of any validity. In the Critique of Pure Reason, subjectivity is not allowed to be any guarantee of objectivity absolute. In the Critique of the Practical Reason, just the contrary is insisted on and that subjectivity is guarantee of ob- jectivity absolute: and that it is, is the very soul of that Critique. Oh! consistency, thy name is not Immanuel Kant ! XXI Critique of the Practical Reason But now, as a moment ago, I said that then and there, for the most part, an end of our Critique of Pure Kant, so far as Kant's Critique of Pure Rea- son, taken by itself, is concerned, so, now I say, here at an end that Critique altogether. But yet a word, and only a word, as to his Critique of the Practical Reason; only a word, for when you have heard the opinion of the Judge on the Bench, what the counsel for, or against the ac- cused has to say is of little account. And Kant in his Critique of the Pure Reason was a Judge on the Bench. He was then under no bias, no conscious bias at least, to discover one particular thing, or another, as the truth, but to discover the truth sim- ply, whatever that might be. His attitude, too, was the scientific one, that of the man of modern science who, on entering his laboratory, is indiffer- ent as to whether oxygen unites with carbon to form water, or with hydrogen to form it, he only eager to know which it is. But Kant in his Critique of the Practical Rea- son is no longer the judge on the bench, but the advocate at the bar. He has now demeaned him- self to the level of a vastly lower role in the drama 286 Critique of Pure Kant of his enacting. The accused, namely, the Being of God, as also freedom and immortality of the human soul, — as also the latter, since depending, as they are generally understood to, on the former, are, particeps criminis, in a way, with the Being of God Himself, the principal offender, — charged, we are to understand, with the crime of being veri- table realities, have, in the Critique of Pure Rea- son, just been acquitted of the grave offense, as, *'in the opinion of the Court" (Kant himself), the evidence was "insufficient to convict." But now, again, these criminal dignitaries are up for trial, and, this time, with Kant the leading counsel for the prosecution, in the attempt to prove them guilty, guilty of being veritable truths, actual realities in- deed. The accused, whom or which Kant as judge found, at the first trial, innocent, found the evi- dence "insufficient to convict," he is suddenly, as prosecutor, flush with evidence to prove guilty. And of course^ to prove guilty; for, like every other advocate, however disposed to be fair, he is bound, under the stress of the exigencies of the role he is enacting, to attach significance to some facts or circumstances which, before, with him as judge had little, or none; to realize less in others which, before, seemed to him to have much; and, maybe, even to overlook altogether still others which pos- sibly hitherto he had given special attention to; bound, in a word, so to juggle with the facts, and even juggle with his own faculties that, to his mind, guilty "without reasonable doubt" was the only "verdict" that could consistently be "returned." Critique of The Practical Reason 287 In other words, Kant now, in the Critique of the Practical Reason, has it in mind, not to discover what is the truth, but to prove what it is already a foregone conclusion in his own mind, and what it is his own, and the pleasure of all mankind, to think is the truth, is the truth. It is not in that God, im- mortality and the soul are not truths or realities that lies Kant's mental apostacy and demoralization for the moment, but in that he iirst assumes them such, and then — as is ever the temper of the strenuous advocate — has it in mind headlong in any event to demonstrate them such; headlong in any event to break and bend facts and considerations to the exigencies of the predestined conclusion that truths and realities they are. It is simply impossible that a mind, under the stress of an ardent advocate's leaning, should not color its line of thought itself with that leaning. Not in our civil and criminal courts would, for an instant, be taken the opinion of judge, or of jury, under one hundredth, no, not under one thousandth the bias of Kant in the course of his argument — argument if it may be called, to call it something — for God, immortality and the soul. I say a judge or a jury even under one ten thousandth the prepossession of opinion of Kant in the elaboration of his Critique of the Practical Reason, would be disbarred of all function in the trial. And yet, still that Kant was under such tre^ mendous stress to drive his argument to the goal of his own foreordination, the whole religious world, spite of the reactionary conclusions of his 288 Critique of Pure Kant Critique of the Pure Reason, but, because he, in the Critique of the Practical Reason pats on the back, doctrine of its most cherished and ardent belief, "takes stock" to the limit in his argument in the lat- ter Critique as were his the very "pink of perfec- tion" of mental attitude in the conduct of it; and as must not the argument itself be in the least im- paired by the viciousness of that attitude. And so would seem besides, even about the whole academic world, to do much the same thing; and even to be, as I before said, prostrate before Kant as before a very god, and almost as before very God; mean- time, its only excuse for it all, being that it knows no better! And the pity 'tis it knows no better! Now, the Critique of the Practical Reason is, in brief, to the effect of a contention that, because our practical or moral experience requires us, as would seem, to postulate such as the Being of God an outstanding entity and absolute reality, there- fore is there such; — the same reasoning — rea- soning ! — as it is thought to be, applying to the doctrines of freedom, the soul and immortality! But now, could you imagine a line of argument more utterly shallow, more thoroughly sophistical? Why it is like contending that, because our sensu- ous and perceptual experience requires us, as might it seem, to postulate such as a varicolored sunset sky, as being an outstanding entity and absolute reality, entity and reality independent of eye and brain therefore is there, forsooth, such sky an out- standing entity, and absolute reality, — precisely, however, what we know there is not; precisely what Critique of The Practical Reason 289 every scientist the world over assures us there is not, that color, we being told, depending wholly on our eyes and brain only for which would it exist; and which precisely, (that outstanding independ- ent reality) that there is not, is absolutely demon- strative that, because our sensuous or perceptual experience requires us, as it might seem, to postu- late a varicolored sunset sky an outstanding inde- pendent entity or absolute reality, it is no evidence in the least whatever, much less proof of such vari- colored sky an outstanding independent entity and absolute reality. And so by a parity of reasoning is it, of course, similarly absolutely demonstrative that because our practical or moral experience re- quires us, as it might seem, to postulate such as a Being of God, freedom and immortality, it is not the least evidence whatever, much less proof, of anything such outstanding and absolute realities, realities independent of our thinking or thought. And yet, I say, as runs the logic of the Critique of the Practical Reason, it is evidence, and most abundant and conclusive evidence thereof; which only shows up at a stroke, most luminously and ex- haustively, the utter rottenness of the logic, logic as it pretends to be, at the bottom of that Critique. And, still, it is that of Kant, that of him of colos- sal and Copernican intellect, as it is said! Colos- sal! and Copernican! But, oh. Shade of Coperni- cus, forgive us for ever once mention, in the same breath, of yours with the name of Immanuel Kant ! But enough and enough. Why say more? Why follow Kant further into the wilderness ? And 290 Critique of Pure Kant to return to my earlier inquiry — Why waste time on the specious pleading of an advocate, as it might be on either side, when you have the judgment of the Judge on the Bench ? — Why, when you, in the Critique of the Pure Reason, have "the opinion of the Court" in the matter, even Kant himself the Court? No reason why; and we will waste none further on it. We have even scripture itself for it that a house divided against itself shall not stand. And so it is to be said of the Reason, that it, that that, divided against Itself as Kant in his two Critiques of the Pure Reason and of the Practical Reason has divided it, shall not stand; stand as having any authority, stand as commanding to the full the respect and confidence of mankind. And in the light of this division of Kant's of the Rea- son against Itself, it cannot be said of his two Critiques, as someone has remarked of the earlier, that it is the "glorification of the Reason"; as rather, is it that the two are very the damnation of the Reason. But now, as I, a while ago, was done with Im- manuel Kant so far as his Critique of the Pure Rea- son is concerned, so now, again, am I done with him so far as his Critique of the Practical Reason is concerned ; and done with him, indeed, altogether as, as surely as the sun rises on the morrow, will all mankind sometime in the future have done with him as a metaphysician, and done with him forever and forever. Appendix A It was said in the preface to this work that the truth or falsity of Kant's transcendental aesthetic does not hinge primarily on the possibility of knowl- edge independent of experience; but I may add here that it does not even hinge secondarily on it; since even were there that possibility, still such knowledge might not include that afforded in sensuous experi- ence. That it must is entirely a non sequitur if there ever was one. It is but academic dogmatic assumption that affects to bridge the abyss between the premiss and the any such conclusion. So that it has not been that I was to be under- stood as making the contention that there are no "classes of ideas," no "forms" in the "human Rea- son" which do not come through experience — which it is difficult to see how anyone could main- tain — but that it is not through any such as first in the human Reason that "experience is acquired," as Kant sought to establish is the case. For what is the transcendental aesthetic? Why, it is not simply that there are "classes of ideas, or forms" in the Reason affording knowledge independent of ex- perience, but it is, besides, that among them are those first in the Reason through which, later, "ex- perience is acquired." So that as there might be those affording knowledge independent of experi- 292 Critique of Pure Kant ence, and still not those through which experi- ence is acquired, the truth or falsity of the trans- cendental aesthetic does not turn on there being the former but does turn on there being at least the latter. And as to there being the latter, you might as well talk about a leaf deriving "form" or structure and function from a flower — almost the exact re- verse is the fact — as to talk about the senses or sensuous experience deriving anything of "form," or whatsoever from the intellect or Reason. But, then, Kant was no evolutionist, but a snap-creation- ist. He knew nothing practically, of the order of evolution. His whole theory of mind, is quite the reverse of it; and indeed as violent an outrage on that order as it is possible to conceive. But even for the moment to pass that, and to keep to his own ground, there yet is absolutely no logical connection between the human intellect or Reason having some "ideas or forms" and its hav- ing all such, or having any such as some faculty Kant might think, or anybody might think, distinct and alien to the intellect or Reason, as Kant as- sumed for the senses might have — no logical con- nection whatever. And was it, then, that he had a fancied aborig- inal Reason in his mind, and in his mind as at the foundation of the universe and author of every- thing mental outside Itself — Itself without senses and sensuous experience, of course — and so au- thor of any "idea or form" met with in the human mind, and in the senses through which "idea or Critique of The Practical Reason 293 form sensuous experience is acquired"? Did he have that, or even have now one and now the other in view, but flit with such lightning change from one to the other that you never know when he has one in mind and when the other? Or even did he have both simultaneously in view as were to have one in mind was to have the other as well, — such his utter confusion as to the distinction between the two? It would almost seem the last was the case, and that he was under the impression, as are most of his echoes and idolators after him, that author- ship of whatsoever by one is at once authorship of it by the other and both, and because of identity of nature of both; quite overlooking that identity of nature is not identity of entities having that nature, which itself quite debars one necessarily having an experience because the other has it. But then, anyway, what did he, or do we, know about an infinite or aboriginal Reason? Nothing, absolutely nothing. If there is a finite or condi- tioned Reason, and which is ours, then an infinite or unconditioned Reason has not the ghost of a fact or rational consideration in warrant of its existence. More than this, such is positively inconceivable, still that the whole academic world never doubts the fact of it. It is positively inconceivable that, as ours is a finite or conditioned mental assuming the form of the Reason, that fancied infinite, uncondi- tioned or absolute mental should obtain in the assumed same form and be anything the Reason at all. It is positively inconceivable, to any intensive thinking, that the relation of infinite to finite, of the 294 Critique of Pure Kant unconditioned to the conditioned is the mere me- chanical and quantitative one such as larger stream to lesser, as has always been assumed, and not rather such as stream to eddy of the stream. The former is thinkofable; oh, yes, as is thinkofable that two and two is five, but not thinkable as is that two and two is four. And I say again, it is abso- lutely unthinkable that infinite shrunken to finite should not suflfer a jolt in the transition that con- stitutionally must radically altar it as well as cir- cumscribe it; so that if the form of the mental to which the fancied infinite aboriginal is altered is that of the conscious mind or Reason such as is our own, then the former itself thus reduced and trans- formed must be of quite another order than that of the human Reason, nevertheless wholly incompre- hensible to us what definitively that form or order is. A thousand volumes or gallons, more or less, of oxygen and hydrogen shrunken to the compass of a pint of water, evidently are not still, as water, themselves in their original integrity or condition at all, yet that is utterly hidden from us in what con- dition precisely they are. And although the cases are not altogether parallel, the latter is at least sug- gestive; and the revolution undergone by the any mental in its first estate of infinite and aboriginal, must, in a drop from that to the mental in the form of the finite or human Reason, be nothing less as great and inevitable as in the above and former case; and the any inference of what that fancied infinite aboriginal was (or is) from what is the human conscious mind or Reason is as absolutely im- Critique of The Practical Reason 295 possible as any inference as to what oxygen and hydrogen are in their original integrity from what they are as they appear as water. Nor is it any more against that aboriginal mental obscure form's obtaining that it is inappreciable by us what defi- nitely it is, than it is against oxygen and hydrogen as objective realities, that the forms they assume as they appear as water are beyond our divining what precisely they are. So, that there is an actual infinite Reason to which ours is finite is about as irrational and un- warranted a proposition as well could be, notwith- standing the whole academic world has shouted it from time immemorial. The only conclusion left then is that it is the Rea- son cooped up in our own brains that is author or ori- gin of "ideas or forms" through which experience is acquired, or else that they have no spring in the Reason at all. But I will add that even were the difference be- tween infinite or aboriginal mental and finite or human mental merely the mechanical or quantitative one of larger stream to lesser, even then the latter would be so robbed of power of accomplishment that just what it is robbed of might be very that power to afford "ideas or forms" through which experience is acquired. And there is no manner of means of knowing, no data for the inference, that it is not so. So that viewed any way you will, altogether without the least warrant whatever is any proposition looking to "idea or form through which experience is acquired," obtaining first in the jl-:i.T:j-_'*:Lta.Jt 296 Critique of Pure Kant Reason — altogether without it even on Kant's own ground. But now to shift from Kant's own ground to that already hinted, and only which is consistent with the vast increase of our knowledge which has come to us since Kant's day, — to shift to that, and what then? Why, we get rid of all this awkward and cumbersome freight, of academic distinctions dogmatic and childish between finite and infinite, between fancied aboriginal conscious mind, or Rea- son, and human conscious mind, or Reason, the former of which we know absolutely nothing about, not even that it obtains, and have to deal only with that conscious mind or Reason within our own brains which we know does obtain and which we may and do know something about. And that, the latter, we know from experience and observa- tion to be, to all appearance, but an aftermath and a development, what is a flowering of the mental and not either, so to speak, the whole plant, leaf and all, obtaining before the leaf otherwise arrives, and even from which the leaf, once it otherwise arrives, is derived, nor that which is itself either derived from the leaf, or even from the whole plant, but derived, that itself, the Reason, from what both the leaf and whole plant are, namely, the somewhat utterly in- scrutable in the seed. That is, we know it to be what is a flowering of the mental, and not either the whole mind the senses and all obtaining as it were, before the senses otherwise arrive, and even from which these take origin, nor that which itself is either derived from the senses, or even from the Critique of The Practical Reason 297 whole mind but derived that itself, the Reason, our Reason, from what both the senses and whole mmd are, namely, that somewhat infinitely obscure to us in the mental in its first estate. And this, what is the appearance, we have every fact and rational consideration for believing is the real situation. That is, again, what is the actual situation is not that the senses got their "idea or form" from the Reason, and even before, too, the Reason has an actual existence, nor yet that the Reason itself gets its own "idea or form" from the senses exactly — though this is nearer being true than is the reverse — no, nor even that the mind as a whole (which of course includes the Reason) affords the "idea or form" in either case, but that that which determmes such in either is a somewhat to us in any articulate definiteness altogether beyond our divining in the mental in its earlier and first estate ; the same as is what in the seed is the spring of leaf, flower, and plant altogether, or what in the germ-cell is the source of the full-fledged chicken, utterly beyond our realizing. And that earlier and first estate of the mental, as I have argued in the text of this treatise, we can no better term than as the Pri- mordial Mental and what, as we have said, answers to Soul, and very Soul of the universe, and what, primarily, unconscious and knowing nothing, still does everything without consciousness of its doing anything. And that it is, the Primordial Mental — of which the seed and the germ-cell are ana- logues, — what indeed is very the Soul of the uni- verse, and of which we can only say with any as- 298 Critique of Pure Kant surance and intelligence that It IS, while we must believe at least, that it IS from everlasting to ever- lasting, which is that in which the manifest universe potentially obtains in a form absolutely inscrutable to us, as is the plant in the seed, the chick in the germ- cell, and wherein is the origin, and not the Reason wherein is the origin, of the any "idea or form through which experience is acquired," as it is, also, the origin of all classes of ideas, or forms through which all "experience" transcendental or sensuous "is acquired." / i ' ♦" I COLUM ' "^^i> SITY ^ TBK ARIES / 1 4 •-4 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES \ 0691235 ( oc a UJ V -J • rvj IJJ m ^ iJJ o^ in X r-l s '5