g^^^- ^pH. -^'''^I B R.ARY "- OF THL UNIVERSITY or ILLINOIS 193 K\^kEv.,u v.l . IMMANUEL KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON ^n ommtmoxni\on oi H^t mtmnx^ oi its Jfirst llMMtfatbn TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISS F. MAX MULLER WITH AN HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION LUDWIG NOIRfi MACMILLAN AND CO. 1881 \^AU rights reserved ] c^- IMMANUEL KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON Jfirsl IP art CONTAINING 1. PREFACE BY F. MAX MULLER 2. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION BY LUDWIG NOIRfi 3. SUPPLEMENTS OF THE SECOND EDITION OF THE CRITIQUE - '' \ > yonbon MACMILLAN AND CO. 1881 \^ All rights reserved ] OXFOED: PRINTED BY E, PICKAED HALL, M,A., AND J. H. STACY. PBINTEBS TO THE UNIVEBSITY. '3'd (13^ wv^^ N/-\ i .\ TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAOB Traxslatok's Preface i-lxii. L. Noibe's HisiOEicAL Introduction 1-360 Introduction ....... I Ancient Philosophy . . . . . . 8 Mediaeval PhUosojyhy . . . . . . 67 Modern Philosophy ... "3 Descartes "3 The Materialistic Tendency . . . 1.58 Gassendi. Hobbes ..... . 158 The Idealistic Tendency 171 Geulinx. Malebranche. Berkeley 171 The Monistic Tendency . . . . 187 Spinoza ....... . 187 The Empirical Tendency . 229 Locke . 229 The Individualistic Tendency .... 265 Leibniz ....... . 265 I. The theory of intellectual perception . 283 II. Physics ...... . 299 III. Metaphysics 313 The Skepsis 329 Hume ......... '329 VOL. I. a 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS. Pkincipal Additions made by Kant in the Second Edition judg OF THE CbITIQUE OF PUBE REASON . Supplement I . Supplement II. Preface to Second Edition . Supplement III. Table of Contents of Second Edition Supplement IV. ....... Introduction I. Of the difference between pure and em pirical knowledge II. We are in possession of certain cognitions a priori, and even the ordinary understanding is never without them ..... Supplement V. ...... . Supplement VI. . . . . . V. In all theoretical sciences of reason synthetical ments a priori are contained as principles VI. The general problem of pure reason . Supplement VII. ...... Supplement VIII. ...... Transcendental exposition of the concept of space Supplement IX Supplement X Transcendental exposition of the concept of time Supplement XI. Supplement XII. Supplement Xm Supplement XIV. . . . Deduction of the pure concepts of the understanding Of the possibility of connecting in general . Of the original synthetical unity of apperception The principle of the synthetical unity of apperception is the highest principle of all employment of the under- standing ......... 437 361 363 364 391 398 398 400 403 405 405 408 413 414 414 416 417 417 418 424 430 432 432 432 434 TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE What is the objective unity of self-consciousness ? . . 440 The logical form of all judgments consists in the objective unity of apperception of the concepts contained therein . 441 All sensuous intuitions are subject to the categories as conditions under which alone their manifold contents can come together in one consciousness . . , .442 The category admits of no other employment for the cognition of things but its application to objects of experience ......... 445 Of the application of the categories to objects of the senses ^ in general .......... 448 Transcendental deduction of the universally possible em- ployment of the pure concepts of the understanding in experience ......... 455 Results of this deduction of the concepts of the under- standing ......... 460 Comprehensive view of this deduction . . . .462 Supplement XV. . . . . . . . -463 Supplement XVI a. ....... . 464 I. Axioms of Intuition ....... 464 Supplement XVI b. . . . . . . . . 465 . II. Anticipations of Perception . . . . . 465 Supplement XVII 467 III. Analogies of Experience ...... 467 Supplement XVIII . . . 469 A. First Analogy. Principle of the permanence of sub- stance 469 Supplement XIX . . . .471 B. Second Analogy. Principle of the succession of time, according to the law of causality . . . -471 Supplement XX, . . . . . . . -473 C. Third Analogy. Principle of co-existence according to the law of reciprocity or community . . -473 TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Supplement XXI. . 475 Refutation of Idealism 475 Theorem. The simple but empirically determined con- sciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside myself . . . . -476 Supplement XXII. 480 General note on the system of the principles . . . 480 Supplement XXIII. . . . . . . . .486 Supplement XXIV. . , . . . . . -487 Supplement XXV. . . . . . . . .490 Supplement XX VI. . . . . . . . -491 Supplement XXVII. ........ 492 Refutation of Mendelsohn's proof of the permanence of the soul ......... 497 Conclusion of the solution of the psychological paralogism . 506 General note on the transition from rational psychology to cosmology . . . . . .... . 507 Supplement XXVIII 511 i TEANSLATOE'S PEEFACE. Why I thought I might translate Kant's Critique. ' But how can you waste your time on a translation of Kant's Critik der reinen VernunftV This question, which has been addressed to me by several friends, I think I shall best be able to answer in a preface to that translation itself. And I shall try to answer it point by point. First, then, with regard to myself. Why should I waste my time on a translation of Kant's Critik der reinen Vernunft ? that is, Were there not other per- sons more fitted for that task, or more specially called upon to undertake it? It would be the height of presumption on my part to imagine that there were not many scholars who could have performed such a task as well as myself, or far better. All I can say is, that for nearly thirty years I have been waiting for some one really quali- fied, who would be willing to execute such a task, and have waited in vain. What I feel convinced of is that an adequate translation of Kant must be the work of a German scholar. That conviction was deeply impressed on my mind when reading, now many years ago, Kant's great work with a small class of young students at Oxford among whom I may mention the names of Appleton, Caird, Nettleship, and Wallace. Kant's style is careless and involved. vi TRANSLATORS PREFACE. and no wonder that it should be so, if we consider that he wrote down the whole of the Critique in not quite five months. Now, beside the thread of the argument itself, the safest thread through the mazes of his sentences must be looked for in his adverbs and particles. They, and they only, indicate clearly the true articulation of his thoughts, and they alone im- part to his phrases that pecuhar intonation which tells those who are accustomed to that bye-play of language, what the author has really in his mind, and what he wants to express, if only he could find the right way to do it. When reading and critically interpreting Kant's text, I sometimes compared other translations, particularly the EngHsh translations by Haywood and Meiklejohn \ and excellent as I found their renderings, particularly the latter, in many places, I generally observed that, when the thread was lost, it was owing to a neglect of particles and adverbs, though sometimes also to a want of appreciation of the real, and not simply the dictionary meaning, of German words. It is not my intention to write here a criticism of previous trans- lations ; on the contrary, I should prefer to express my obligation to them for several useful suggestions which I have received from them in the course of what I know to be a most arduous task. But in order to give an idea of what I mean by the danger arising from a neglect of adverbs and particles in ^ I discovered too late that Professor Mahaffy, in his translation of Kuno Fischer's work on Kant (Longmans, 1866), has given some excellent specimens of what a translation of Kant ought to be. Had I known of them in time, I should have asked to be allowed to in- corporate them in my own translation. TRANSLATORS PREFACE. vii German, I shall mention at least a few of the pas- sages of which I am thinking. On p. 42 1 (484), Kant says : Da also selbst die Aujlosung dieser Aufgahen niemals in der Erfahrung vorhommen Tcann. This means, 'As therefore even the solution of these problems can never occur in expe- rience/ i. e. as, taking experience as it is, we have no right even to start such a problem, much less to ask for its solution. Here the particle also implies that the writer, after what he has said before, feels justified in taking the thing for granted. But if we translate, 'Although, therefore, the solution of these problems is unattainable through experience,' we completely change the drift of Kant's reasoning. He wants to take away that very excuse that there exists only some uncertainty in the solution of these problems, by showing that the problems themselves can really never arise, and therefore do not require a solution at aU. Kant repeats the same statement in the same page with still greater emphasis, when he says : Die dogmatische Aujlosung ist also nicTit etwa un- gewiss, sondern unmoglich, i. e. ' Hence the dog- matical solution is not, as you imagine, uncertain, but it is impossible.' On p. 421 (485), the syntactical structure of the sen- tence, as well as the intention of the writer, does not al- low of our changing the words so ist es Muglich gehan- delt, into a question. It is the particle so which requires the transposition of the pronoun {ist es instead of es ist), not the interrogative character of the whole sentence. On p. 42 7 (492), wenn cannot be rendered by although, which is wenn auch in German. Wenn heide nach Viii TEANSLATORS PREFACE. empirischen Gesetzen in einer Erfahrung richtig und durchgdngig zusammenhdngen, means, ' If both have a proper and thorough coherence in an experience, according to empirical laws;' and not, 'Although both have,' etc. Sollen is often used in German to express what, according to the opinion of certain people, is meant to be. Thus Kant, on p. 492 (570), speaks of the ideals which painters have in their minds, and die ein nicht mitzutheilendes Schattenhild ihrer Producte oder auch Beurtheilungen sein sollen, that is, ' which, according to the artists' professions, are a kind of vague shadows only of their creations and criticisms, which cannot be communicated,' All this is lost, if we trans- late, 'which can serve neither as a model for pro- duction, nor as a standard for appreciation.' It may come to that in the end, but it is certainly not the way in which Kant arrives at that conclusion. On p. 536 (625), den einzigmoglichen Beweisgrund {wofern uherall nur ein sjpeculativer Beweis statt findet) is not incorrectly rendered by 'the only possible ground of proof (possessed by speculative reason) ;' yet we lose the thought implied by Kant's way of ex- pression, viz. that the possibility of such a speculative proof is very doubtful. The same applies to an expression which occurs on p. 586 (684), ein solches Schema, als oh es ein wirJcliches Wesen ware. Kant speaks of a schema which is con- ceived to be real, but is not so, and this implied meaning is blurred, if we translate ' a schema, which requires us to regard this ideal thing as an actual existence.' In German, if we speak of two things mentioned TRANSLATORS PREFACE. IX together, we do not use letzter in opposition to jener. On p. 256 (295), Kant speaks of the place which is to be assigned, by means of transcendental reflection, to every presentation (Vorstellung), as belonging either to sensibility or to the understanding, and of the in- fluence which that assignation exercises on the proper representation of a given object. He ends by saying: Wodurch jeder Vorstellung ihre Stelle in der ihr ange- messenen Erhenntnisskraft angewiesen, mithin auch der Einfluss der letzter en aufjene unterschieden wird, that is, 'Whereby the right place is assigned to each repre- sentation in the faculty of knowledge corresponding to it, and the influence of the latter, i. e. of either faculty of knowledge, upon such representation is determined ; ' not, ' and consequently the influence of the one faculty upon the other is made apparent.' On p. 608 (712), Kant writes: Methoden, die zwar sonst der Vernunft, aber nur nicht hier wol anpassen. This has been translated : ' The methods which are originated by reason, but which are out of place in this sphere.' This, again, is not entirely wrong, but it spoils the exact features of the sentence. What is really meant is : ' Methods which are suitable to reason in other spheres, only, I beUeve, not here.' It is curious to observe that Kant, careless as he was in the revision of his text, struck out wol in the Second Edition, because he may have wished to remove even that slight shade of hesitation which is conveyed by that particle. Possibly, however, wol may refer to anpassen, i. e. ^ulchre convenire, the limitation remain- ing much the same in either case. X TRANSLATORS PREFACE. Dock is a particle that may be translated in many different ways, but it can never be translated by therefore. Thus when Kant writes (Suppl. xiv. J 1 7, note, vol. i. p. 438), folglich die Einheit des Bewusst- seyns, als synthetisch, aber dock ursjprilnglich ange- troffen wird, he means to convey an opposition be- tween synthetical and primitive, i. e. synthetical, and yet primitive. To say 'nevertheless synthetical, and therefore primitive ' conveys the very opposite. It may be a mere accident, yet in a metaphysical argument it must sometimes cause serious incon- venience, if the particle not is either omitted where Kant has it, or added where Kant has it not. It is of small consequence, if not is omitted in such a pas- sage as, for instance, where Kant says in the preface to the Second Edition (vol, i. p. 385), that the obscu- rities of the first have given rise to misconceptions * without his fault,' instead of ' not without his fault.' But the matter becomes more serious in other places. Thus (Supplement xiv. 2 6, vol. i. p. 455) Kant says, ohne diese Tauglichheit, which means, 'unless the cate- gories were adequate for that purpose,' but not, * if the categories were adequate.' Again (Supplement xvi^. vol. i. p. 466), Kant agrees that space and time cannot be perceived by themselves, but not, that they can be thus perceived. And it must disturb even an atten- tive reader when, on p. 216 (248), he reads that 'the categories must be employed empirically, and cannot be employed transcendental ly,' while Kant writes : Da sie nicht von em^irischem Gehrauch sein sollen, und von transcendentalem nicht sein Jconnen. As regards single words, there are many in German TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XI which, taken in their dictionary meaning, seem to yield a tolerable sense, but which throw a much brighter light on a whole sentence, if they are under- stood in their more special idiomatic application. Thus vorrucJcen, no doubt, may mean 'to place before,' but Jemandem etwas vorrilcJcen, means 'to reproach somebody with something.' Hence (vol. i. p. 386) die der rationalen Psychologie vorgeruchten Paralogismen does not mean ' the paralogisms which immediately precede the Kational Psychology,' but 'the paralogisms with which Rational Psychology has been reproached.' On p. 41 1 (472), nachhdngen cannot be rendered by * to append.' Er erlauht der Vernunft idealischen Er- hldrungen der Natur nachzuhdngen means * he allows reason to indulge in ideal explanations of nature,' but not ' to append idealistic explanations of natural phenomena.' On p. 669 (781), als oh er die hejahende Parthei er- griffen hdtte, does not mean 'to attack the position,* but ' to adoj)t the position of the assenting party.' On p. 727 (847), Wie Jcann ich erwarten does not mean, ' How can I desire T but, ' How can I expect T which may seem to be not very different, but neverthe- less gives a very different turn to the whole argument. I have quoted these few passages, chiefly in order to show what I mean by the advantages which a German has in translating Kant, as compared with any other translator who has derived his knowledge of the language from grammars and dictionaries only. An accurate and scholarlike knowledge of German would, no doubt, suffice for a translation of XU TRANSLATORS PREFACE. historical or scientific works. But in order to find our way through the intricate mazes of metaphysical arguments, a quick perception of what is meant by the sign-posts, I mean the adverbs and particles, and a natural feeling for idiomatic ways of speech, seem to me almost indispensable. On the other hand, I am fuUy conscious of the advantages which English translators possess by their more perfect command of the language into which foreign thought has to be converted. Here I at once declare my own inferiority ; nay, I confess that in rendering Kant's arguments in English I have thought far less of elegance, smoothness or rhythm, than of accuracy and clearness. What I have attempted to do is to give an honest, and, as far as possible, a literal translation, and, before all, a translation that will construe; and I venture to say that even to a German student of Kant this English translation will prove in many places more intelligible than the German original. It is difficult to translate the hymns of the Veda and the strains of the Upanishads, the odes of Pindar and the verses of Lucretius ; but I doubt whether the difficulty of turning Kant's metaphysical German into intelligible and construable English is less. Nor do I wish my readers to believe that I have never failed in making Kant's sentences intelligible. There are a few sen- tences in Kant's Critique which I have not been able to construe to my own satisfaction, and where none of the friends whom I consulted could help me. Here all I could do was to give a literal rendering, hoping that future editors may succeed in amending TRANSLATORS PREFACE. Xlll the text, and extracting from it a more intelligible sense. Why I thought I ought to translate Kant's Critique. But my friends in blaming me for wasting my time on a translation of Kant's Critique of Pure Beason gave me to understand that, though I might not be quite imfit, I was certainly not specially called upon to undertake such a work. It is true, no doubt, that no one could have blamed me for not translating Kant, but I should have blamed myself ; in fact, I have blamed myself for many years for not doing a work which I felt must be done sooner or later. Year after year I hoped I should find leisure to carry out the long cherished plan, and when at last the Centenary of the publication of Kant's Critik der reinen Vernunft drew near, I thought I was in honour bound not to delay any longer this tribute to the memory of the greatest philosopher of modern times. Kant's Critique has been my con- stant companion through life. It drove me to de- spair when I first attempted to read it, a mere school- boy. At the University I worked hard at it under Weisse, Lotze, and Drobisch at Leipzig, and my first literary attempts in philosophy, now just forty years old, were essays on Kant's Critique. Having once learnt from Kant what man can and what he cannot know, my plan of hfe was very simple, namely, to learn, so far as literature, tradition, and language allow us to do so, how man came to believe that he could know so much more than he XIV TRANSLATORS PREFACE. ever can know in religion, in mythology, and in phi- losophy. This required special studies in the field of the most ancient languages and literatures. But though these more special studies drew me away for many years towards distant times and distant countries, whatever purpose or method there may have been in the work of my life, was due to my beginning life with Kant. Even at Oxford, whether I had to lecture on German literature or on the Science of Language, I have often, in season and out of season, been preaching Kant ; and nothing I have missed so much, when wishing to come to an understanding on the great problems of life with some of my philosophical friends in England, than the common ground which is supplied by Kant for the dis- cussion of every one of them. We need not be blind worshippers of Kant, but if for the solution of philosophical problems we are to take any well defined stand, we must, in this century of ours, take our stand on Kant. Kant's language, and by lan- guage I mean more than mere words, has become the Lingua franca of modern philosophy, and not to be able to speak it, is like studying ancient phi- losophy, without being able to speak Aristotle, or modem philosophy, without being able to speak Descartes. What Rosenkranz, the greatest among Hegel's disciples, said in 1838, is almost as true to-day as it was then : Engldnder, Franzosen und Italiener milssen, wenn sie vorwdrts wollen, denselhen Schritt ihun, den Kant schon 1781 machte. Nur so honnen sie sick von ihrer dermaligen schlechfen Meta- translator's preface. XV jhysik und den aus einer solchen sich ergehenden . chlechten Consequenzen hefreien. It is hardly necessary at the present day to produce my arguments in support of such a view. The num- ber of books on Kant's philosophy, published during 3he last century in almost every language of the world S jpeaks for itself. There is no single philosopher of any aote, even among those who are decidedly opposed to Kant, who has not acknowledged his pre-eminence imong modern philosophers. The great systems of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Herbart, and Schopenhauer branched off from Kant, and now, after a century has passed away, people begin to see that those systems were indeed mighty branches, but that the leading shoot of philosophy was and is still Kant. No truer word has lately been spoken than what, I believe, was first said by Professor Weisse^ in the Philosophical Society at Leipzig, of which I was then a member, and was again more strongly enforced by my friend and former colleague. Professor Liebmann of Strassburg, that, if philosophy wishes to go forward, it must go back to Kant. B faut reculer, pour mieux sauter. Lange, in his History of MateriaUsm, calls Kant the Copernicus of modem philosophy ; aye, Kant himself was so fully conscious of the decentraUsing character of his system that he did not hesitate to compare his work with that of Copernicus 3. But if Kant was right in his estimate of his own philosophy, it cannot be 1 During the first ten years after the appearance of the Critique, three hundred publications have been counted for and against Kant's philosophy. See Vaihinger, Kommentar, i. p. 9. 2 See Julius Walter, Zum Gedachtniss Kant's, p. 28. ' See Supplement II, vol. i. p. 370. XVI TRANSLATORS PREFACE. denied that, with but few, though memorable excep- tions, philosophy in England is still Ante-Copernican. How little Kant is read by those who ought to read him, or how little he is understood by those who venture to criticise him, I never felt so keenly as when, in a controversy which I had some time ago with one of the most illustrious of English philosophers, I was told that space could not be an a priori intuition, because we may hear church-bells, without knowing where the belfry stands. Two philosophers, who both have read Kant's Critique, may differ from each other diametrically, but they will at least understand each other. They will not fire at each other like some of the German students who, for fear of killing their adversary, fire their pistols at right angles, thus endangering the life of their seconds rather than that of their adversaries. This will explain why, for a long time, I have felt personally called upon to place the classical work of Kant within the reach of all philosophical readers in England, and in such a form that no one could say any longer that he could not construe it. I thought for a time that Professor Caird's excellent work ' On the Philosophy of Kant,' had reheved me of this duty. And, no doubt, that work has told, and has opened the eyes of many people in England and in America to the fact that, whatever we may think of all the outworks of Kant's philosophy, there is in it a central thought which forms a real rest and an entrenched ground on the onward march of the human intellect. But it is a right sentiment after all, that it is TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XVll better to read a book than to read about it, and that, as my friend Stanley used to preach again and again, we should never judge of a book, unless we have read the whole of it ourselves. I therefore pledged myself to finish a new translation of Kant's Critique as my contribution to the celebration of its centenary, and though it has taken more time and more labour than I imagined, I do not think my time or my labour will have been wasted, if only people in England, and in America too, will now read the book that is a hundred years old, and yet as young and fresh as ever. So far I have spoken of myself, and more perhaps than a wise man at my time of life ought to do. But I have still to say a few words to explain why I think that, if the time which I have bestowed on this undertaking has not been wasted, others also, and not philosophers by profession only, will find that I have not wasted their time by inducing them at the present time to read Kanf s masterwork in a faithful English rendering. Why a study of Kant's Critique seemed necessary at present. It is curious that in these days when the idea of development, which was first elaborated by the students of philosophy, language, and religion, and afterwards applied with such brilliant success to the study of nature also, should now receive so little favour from the very sciences which first gave birth to it. Long before we heard of evolution in nature, we read of the dialectical evolution of thought, and VOL. I. b XVm TRANSLATORS PREFACE. its realisation in history and nature. The history of philosophy was then understood to represent the con- tinuous development of philosophical thought, and the chief object of the historian was to show the necessity with which one stage of philosophical thought led to another. This idea of rational development, which forms a far broader and safer basis than that of natu- ral development, is the vital principle in the study of the human mind, quite as much, if not more, than in the study of nature. A study of language, of my- thology, of religion, and philosophy, which does not rest on the principle of development, does not deserve the name of a science^ The chief interest which these sciences possess, is not that they show us isolated and barren facts, but that they show us their origin and growth, and explain to us how what is, was the neces- sary result of what was. ' In drawing the stemma of languages, mythological formations, religious behefs, and philosophical ideas, science may go wrong, and often has gone wrong. So have students of nature in drawing their stemmata of plants, and animals, and human beings. But the principle remains true, for all that. In spite of all that seems to be accidental or arbitrary, there is a natural and intelli- gible growth in what we call the creations of the human mind, quite as much as in what we call the works of natiu-e. The one expression, it may be said, is as mythological as the other, because the category of substance cannot apply to either nature or mind. Both, however, express facts which must be ex- plained ; nay, it is the chief object of science to explain them, and to explain them genetically. Is TRANSLATOBS PREFACE. XIX Aristotle possible or intelligible without Plato ? Is Spinoza possible or intelligible without Descartes'? Is Hume possible or intelligible without Berkeley 1 Is Kant possible or intelligible without Hume 1 These are broad questions, and admit of one answer only. But if we have once seen how the broad stream of thought follows its natural bent, flows onward, and never backward, we shall understand that it is as much the duty of the science of thought to trace unbroken the course of philosophy from Thales to Kant, as it is the duty of natural science to trace the continuous development of the single cell to the complicated organism of an animal body, or the possible metamorphosis of the Hipparion into the Hippos. '^ What I wanted, therefore, as an introduction to my translation of Kant's Critique, was a pedigree of philosophical thought, showing Kant's ancestors and Kant's descent. Here, too. Professor Caird's work seemed to me at one time to have done exactly what I wished to see done. Valuable, however, as Pro- fessor Caird's work is on all sides acknowledged to be, I thought that an even more complete list of Kantian ancestors might and should be given, and (what weighed even more with me), that these ances- tors should be made to speak to us more in their own words than Professor Caird has allowed them to do. At my time of life, and in the midst of urgent work, I felt quite unequal to that task, and I there- fore applied to Professor Noir^ who, more than any other philosopher I know, seemed to me qualified to b2 XX TRANSLATORS PREFACE. carry out that idea. Kant's philosophy, and more particularly the antecedents of Kant's philosophy, had been his favourite study for life, and no one, as I happened to know, possessed better materials than he did for giving, in a short compass, the ijpsissima verba by which each of Kant's ancestors had made and marked his place in the history of thought. Professor Noire readily complied with my request, and supplied a treatise which I hope will fully accomplish what I had in view. The translation was entrusted by him to one of the most distinguished translators of philo- sophical works in England, and though the exactness and gracefulness peculiar to Professor Noire s German style could hardly have full justice done to them in an English rendering, particularly as the constant introduction of the verba i^sissima of various authors cannot but disturb the unity of the diction, I hope that many of my English readers will feel the same gratitude to him which I have here to express for his kind and ready help. If, then, while making allowance for differences of opinion on smaller points, we have convinced our- selves that Kant is the last scion of that noble family of thinkers which Professor Noire has drawn for us with the hand of a master, what follows 1 Does it follow that we should all and on all points become Kantians, that we should simply learn his philosophy, and be thankful that we know now all that can be known about the Freedom of the Will, the Immor- tality of the Soul, and the Existence of God 1 Far from it. No one would protest more strongly than Kant against what he himself calls ' learning philosophy,' TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XXI as opposed to * being a philosopher.' All I contend for is that, in our own modern philosophy, the work once for all done by Kant can be as little ignored as the work done by Hume, Leibniz, Berkeley, Locke, Spinoza, and Descartes. I do not deny the historical importance of the Post-Kantian systems of philosophy, "whether of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Herbart, or Scho- penhauer in Germany, of Cousin in France, or of Mill in England. But most of these philosophers recog- ijised Kant as their spiritual father ^ Even Comte, ignorant as he was of German and German philo- sophy, expressed his satisfaction and pride when he discovered how near he had, though unconsciously, approached to Kant's philosophy 2. Some years ago ^ Julius AValter, Zum Gedachtniss Kant's, p. 27. "^ ' J'ai lu et relu avec un plaisir ijafini le petit traits de Kant (Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbiirgerlicher Absicht, 1784) ; il est prodigieux pour I'^poque, et meme, si je I'avais connu six ou sept ans plus tot, il m'aurait ^pargn6 de la peine. Je suis charme que vous I'ayez traduit, il pent tr^s-efficacement contribuer k preparer les esprits a la philosophie positive. La conception g6u6rale ou au moins la m^thode y est encore ni^taphysique, mais les details montrent k chaque instant I'esprit positif. J'avais tou- jours regard^ Kant non-seulement comme une tres-forte t^e, mais comme le m^taphysicien le plus rapproch6 de la philosophie positive. .... Pour moi, je ne me trouve jusqu'a present, aprfes cette lecture, d'autre valeur que celle d'avoir systematise et arr^t^ la conception 6bauch6e par Kant k mon insu, ce que je dois surtout a I'^ducation scientifique ; et meme le pas le plus positif et le plus distinct que j'ai fait aprfes lui, me semble seulement d'avoir decouvert la loi du passage des idees humaines par les trois etats tli^ologique, m<^ta- physique, et scientifique, loi qui me semble 6tre la base du travail dont Kant a conseill6 I'execution. Je rends grace aujourd'hui k mon d^faut d'^rudition ; car si mon travail, tel qu'il est maintenant, avait 6t6 pr6c6d6 chez moi par I'etude du traite de Kant, il aurait, a. mes propi'es yeux, beau coup perdu de sa valeur.' See Augusta Comte, par E. Littr^, Paris, 1864, p. 154; Lettre de Comte k M. d'Eichthal, 10 Dec. 1824. XXll TRANSLATORS PREFACE. I ventured to point out that, as far as I could judge, amid the varying aspects of his philosophical writings, Mr. Herbert Spencer also, in what he calls his Transfigured Kealism, was not very far from Kant's fundamental position. Mr. Herbert Spencer, however, has repudiated what I thought the highest compliment that could be paid to any writer on philosophy, and I feel bound therefore to withdraw my conjecture. But although, whether consciously or unconsciously, all truly important philosophers have, since the pub- lication of the Critique of Pure Reason, been more or less under the spell of Kant, and indirectly of Hume and Berkeley also, this does not mean that they have not asserted their right of reopening questions which seemed to be solved and settled by those heroes in the history of human thought. Only, if any of these old problems are to be taken up again, they ought at least to be taken up where they were last left. Unless that is done, philosophy will be- come a mere amusement, and will in no wise mark the deep vestiges in the historical progress of the human intellect. There are anachronisms in philo- sophy, quite as much as in other sciences, and the spirit in which certain philosophical problems have of late been treated, both in England and in Germany, is really no better than a revival of the Ptolemaic system would be in astronomy. No wonder, there- fore, that in both countries we should meet with constant complaints about this state of philosophical anarchy. Mr. Challis in one of the last numbers of the Contemj^orary Beview (November, 1881), writes: TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XXIU * It is another familiar fact, a much more important one, that the present state of philosophy is exactly parallel to the present state of theology, a chaos of conflicting schools, each able to edify itself without convincing any other, every one regarding all the rest, not as witnesses against itself, but as food for dialectical powder and shot. The impartial by- stander sees no sign that we are now nearer to agreement than in the days of Varro ; though the enthusiast of a school expects the world to be all some day of his opinion, just as the enthusiast of a sect believes vaguely in an ultimate triumph of his faith.' Exactly the same complaint reaches us from the very country where Kant's voice was once so powerful and respected, then was silenced for a time, and now begins to be invoked again, for the purpose of re- storing order where all seems confusion. * Since the year 1840,' writes Dr. Vaihinger, 'there has been hopeless philosophical anarchy in Germany. There were the disciples of Schelling, Hegel, Her- bart, 'and Schopenhauer, and, by their side, the founders and defenders of many unknown systems of philosophy. Then followed the so-called Eeal- Idealists, or Ideal-Realists, who distiUed a philo- sophical theism out of the pantheism of greater thinkers, and, as their antipodes, the Materialists, who on the new discoveries of natural science founded the saddest, shallowest, and emptiest system of philosophy ^' ^ Vaihinger, Zum Jubilaum von Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 11. XXIV TRANSLATORS PREFACE. In England and America, even more tlian in Ger- many, I believe that a study of Kant holds out the best hope of a philosophical rejuvenescence. In Germany a return to Kant is a kind of Renaissance ; in England and America Kant's philosophy, if once thoroughly understood, will be, I hope, a new birth. No doubt there are, and there have been in every country of Europe some few honest students who perfectly understood Kant's real position in the onward march of human thought. But to the most fertile writers on philosophy, and to the general public at large, which derives its ideas of philosophy from them, Kant's philosophy has not only been a terra incognita, but the very antipodes of what it really is. Mr. Watson, in his instruc- tive work, * Kant and his English Critics,' is per- fectly right when he says that, till very lately, Kant was regarded as a benighted a jpriori phi- losopher of the dogmatic type, afflicted with the hallucination that the most important part of our knowledge consists of innate ideas, lying in the depths of consciousness, and being capable of being brought to the light by pure introspection.' That Kant was the legitimate successor of Hume on one side, and of Berkeley on the other, was hardly con- ceived as possible. And thus it has happened that English philosophy, in spite of the large number of profound thinkers and brilliant writers who have served in its ranks during the last hundred years, has not yet risen above the level of Locke and Hume. No one can admire more than I do the dashing style in which some of the most popular TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XXV writers of our time have ridden up to the very muzzles of the old philosophical problems, but if I imagine Kant looking back from his elevated position on those fierce and hopeless onslaughts, I can almost hear him say what was said by a French general at Balaclava : C'est magnifique, mais ce nest pas la guerre. Quite true it is that but for Hume, and but for Berkeley, Kant would never have been, and philosophy would never have reached the heights which he occupies. But, after Kant, Hume and Berkeley have both an historical significance only. They represent a position which has been conquered and fortified, and has now been deliberately left behind. Professor Noird, w^hen he had written for this work the antecedents of Kant's philosophy, sent' me another most valuable contribution, containing! a full analysis of that philosophy, considered not] only as the continuation, but as the fulfilment ofl all other philosophical systems, and more particularly of the systems of Berkeley and Hume. For that work it was unfortunately impossible to find room in these volumes ; but I am glad to know that it will not be withheld, in German at least, from those who, both in England and in Germany, have learnt to appreciate Professor Noire 's accurate and luminous statements. Leaving therefore the task of tracing minutely the intimate relation between Kant and his predecessors to the more experienced hand of my friend, I shall here be satisfied with pointing out in the broadest way the connection, and, at the same time, the diametrical opposition between Kant XXVI TRANSLATORS PREFACE. and those two great heroes of speculative thought, Berkeley and Hume- Berkeley holds that all knowledge that seems to come to us from without through the senses or through experience is mere illusion, and that truth exists in the ideas of the pure understanding and of reason onlv. Kant proves that all knowledge that comes to us from pure understanding and from pure reason only is mere illusion, and that truth is impossible without experience. Hume holds that true causality is impossible, whether in experience or beyond experience. Kant proves that experience itself is impossible without the category of causality, and, of course, without several other categories also which Hume had overlooked, though they possess exactly the same character as the concept of causality ^ The gist of Kant's philosophy, as opposed to that of Hume, can be expressed in one line : That without which experience is impossible, cannot be the result of ex- perience, though it must never be applied beyond the limits of possible experience. Such broad statements and counter-statements may seem to destroy the finer shades of philosophical thought, yet in the end even the most complicated and elaborate systems of philosophy rest on such broad foundations ; and what we carry about with us of Plato or Aristotle, of Descartes or Leibniz, consists ^ This is Kant's statement, though it is not quite accurate. See Adamson, On the Philosophy of Kant, p. 202. That Kant knew Hume's Treatise on Human Nature seems to follow from Hamann s Metakritik uher den Purismus der reinen Vemunft, p. 3, note. TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XXVll in the end of little more than a few simple out- lines of the grand structures of their philosophical thoughts. And in that respect no system admits of being traced in simpler and broader outlines than that of Kant. Voluminous and compHcated it is, and yet Kant himself traces in a few lines the outcome of it, when he says (Critique, p. 712 (830) : * But it will be said, is this really all that pure reason can achieve, in opening prospects beyond the limits of experience '? Nothing more than two articles of faith 1 Surely even the ordinary understanding could have achieved as much without taking counsel of philoaiophers ! * I shall not here dwell on the benefits,* 1l;^e answers, 'which, by the laborious efforts of its criticism, phi- losophy has conferred on human reason, granting even that in the end they should turn out to be merely negative. On this point something will have to be said in the next section. But, I ask, do you really require that knowledge, which con- cerns all men, should go beyond the common un- derstanding, and should be revealed to you by philosophers only 1 The very thing which you find fault with is the best confirmation of the correct- ness of our previous assertions, since it reveals to us, what we could not have grasped before, namely, that in matters which concern all men without dis- tinction, nature cannot be accused of any partial distribution of her gifts; and that, with regard to the essential interests of human nature, the highest philosophy can achieve no more than that guidance which nature has vouchsafed even to the meanest imderstanding.' XXVlll TRANSLATORS PREFACE. I hope that the time will come when Kant's works, and more particularly his Critique of Pure Eeason, will be read, not only by the philosopher by pro- fession, but by everybody who has once seen that there are problems in this life of ours the solu- tion of which alone makes life worth living. These problems, as Kant so often tells us, are all the making of reason, and what reason has made, reason is able to unmake. These problems represent in fact the mythology of philosophy, that is, the influence of dying or dead language on the living thought of each successive age ; and an age which has found the key to the ancient mythology of religion, will know where to look for the key that is to unlock the mythology of pure reason. Kant has shown us what can and what cannot be known by man. What re- mains to be done, even after Kant, is to show how man came to believe that he could know so much more than he can know, and this will have to be shown by a Critique of Language ^. How strange it is that Kant's great contemporary, ' the Magus of the North,' should have seen this at once, and that for a whole century that thought has ^ "What I mean by this, may be seen in the last Lecture of the Second Series of my Lectures on the Science of Language, delivered in 1867 (ed. 1880, vol. ii. p. 612 seq.) ; in my article On the Origin of Reason, Contemjyorary Review, February, 1878; my Lectures on Mr. Darwin's Philosophy of Language, Fraser's Magazine, May, 1873; also in Professor Noire's works, Der Ursjrrung der Sjtrache, 1877; and Max Miiller and tlie Philosophy of Language (Long- mans, 1879). One important problem, in the solution of which I differ from Kant, or rather give a new application to Kant's own ])rinciples, has been fully treated in my Hibbert Lectures, 1878, pp. 30 seq. TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XXIX remained dormant. ' Language,' Hamaun writes, * is not only the foundation for the whole faculty of thinking, but the central point also from which pro- ceeds the misunderstanding of reason by herself.' And again ^: 'The question with me is not, What is Reason 1 but. What is Language 1 And here I suspect is the ground of all paralogisms and anti- nomies with which Reason has been charged.' And again : * Hence I feel almost inclined to believe that our whole philosophy consists more of language than of reason, and the misunderstanding of number- less words, the prosopopoeias of the most arbitrary abstraction, the antitheses t^? y^evScovviuov yvaxTem ; nay, the commonest figures of speech of the sensus communis have produced a whole world of problems, which can no more be raised than solved. What we want is a Grammar of Reason.' That Kant's Critique will ever become a popular book, in the ordinary sense of the word, is impos- sible ; but that it will for ever occupy a place in the small tourist's library which every thoughtful travel- ler across this short life's journey will keep by his side, I have no doubt. Kant, it must be admitted, was a bad writer, but so was Aristotle, so was Descartes, so was Leibniz, so was Hegel ; and, after a time, as in climbing a mountain, the very roughness of the road becomes an attraction to the traveller. Besides, though Kant is a bad builder, he is not a bad archi- tect, and there will be few patient readers of the Critique who will fail to understand Goethe's ex- pression that on reading Kant, or rather, I should ^ Gildemeister, Hamann's Leben und Schriften, vol. iii. p. 71. XXX TRANSLATORS PREFACE. say, on reading Kant again and again, we feel like stepping into a lighted room. I have tried hard, very hard, to remove some of the darkness which has hitherto shrouded Kant's masterwork from English readers, and though I know how often I have failed to satisfy myself, I still hope I shall not have laboured quite in vain. Englishmen who, in the turmoil of this century, found leisure and mental vigour enough to study once more the thoughts of Plato, and perceived their bearing on the thoughts of our age, may weU brace themselves to the harder work of discovering in Kant the solution of many of the oldest problems of our race, problems which, with most of us, are still the problems of yester- day and of to-day. I am well aware that for Kant there is neither the prestige of a name, such as Plato, nor the cunning of a translator, such as Jowett. But a thinker who in Germany could make him- self listened to during the philosophical apathy of the Wolfian age, who from his ultima Thule of Konigsberg could spring forward to grasp the rudder of a vessel, cast away as unseaworthy by no less a captain than Hume, and who has stood at the helm for more than a century, trusted by all whose trust was worth having, will surely find in England, too, patient listeners, even though they might shrink, as yet, from embarking in his good ship in their passage across the ocean of life. Kant's Metaphysic in relation to Physical Science. We live in an age of physical discovery, and of complete philosophical prostration, and thus only can TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XXXI we account for the fact that physical science, and, more particularly, physiology, should actually have grasped at the sceptre of philosophy. Nothing, I believe, could be more disastrous to both sciences. No one who knows my writings will suspect me of undervaluing the progress which physical studies have made in our time, or of ignoring the light which they have shed on many of the darkest problems of the mind. Only let us not unnecessarily move the old landmarks of human knowledge. There always has been, and there always must be, a Hne of demarcation between physical and metaphysical investigations, and though the former can illustrate the latter, they can never take their place. Nothing can be more in- teresting, for instance, than recent researches into the exact processes of sensuous perception. Optics and Acoustics have carried us deep into the inner j workings of our bodily senses, and have enabled us to understand what we call colours and sounds, as vibra- tions, definite in number, carried on from the outer organs through vibrating media to the brain and the inmost centre of all nervous activity. Such observa- tions have, no doubt, made it more intelligible, even to the commonest understanding, what metaphysicians / mean when they call all secondary qualities subjective, and deny that anything can be, for instance, green or sweet, anywhere but in the perceiving subject. But the idea that these physical and physiological researches have brought us one inch nearer to the real focus of subjective perception, that any move- ment of matter could in any way explain the simplest sensuous perception, or that behind the membranes XXXU TRANSLATORS PREFACE. and nerves we should ever catch hold of what we call the soul, or the I, or the self, need only to be stated to betray its utter folly. That men like Helmholtz and Du Bois-Reymond should find Kant's metaphysical platform best adapted for supporting their physical theories is natural enough. But how can any one who weighs his words say that the modern physiology of the senses has in any way supplemented or im- proved Kant's theory of knowledge^ 1 As well might we say that spectrum analysis has improved our logic, or the electric light supplemented our geometry. ' Empirical psychology,' as Kant says, ' must be en- tirely banished from metaphvsic, and is excluded from it by its very idea^.' V Metaphysical truth is wider than physical truth, and the new discoveries of physical observers, if they are to be more than merely contingent truths, must find their appointed place and natural refuge within the immoveable limits traced by the metaphysician. It was an unfortunate accident that gave to what ought to have been called pro-physical, the name of meta- physical science, for it is only after having mastered the principles of metaphysic that the student of nature can begin his work in the right spirit, know- ing the horizon of human knowledge, and guided by principles as unchangeable as the pole star. It would be childish to make this a question of rank or precedence; it is simply a question of work and order. It may require, for instance, a greater effort, * See Noir^, in Die Gegenwart, June 23, i88i. * Critique, p. 728 (848). TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XXXIU and display more brilliant mental qualities, to show that nature contains no traces of repeated acts of special creation, than to prove that such a theory would make all unity of experience, and consequently all science, impossible. But what are all the negative arguments of the mere observer without the solid foundation supplied by the metaphysician 1 And with how much more of tranquil assurance would the geologist pursue his observations and develop his conclusions, if he just remembered these few lines of Kant : * When such an arising is looked upon as the effect of a foreign cause, it is called creation. This can never be admitted as an event among phenomena, because its very possibility would destroy unity of experience \' What can have been more delightful to the un- prejudiced observer than the gradual diminution of the enormous number of what were called by students of nature, who had never troubled their heads about the true meaning of these terms, genera and species 1 But when the true meaning, and thereby the true origin, of genera and species was to be determined, is it not strange that not one word should ever have been said on the subjective character of these terms ? Whatever else a genus or species may be, surely they are, first of all, concepts of the understanding, and, without these concepts, whatever nature might pre- sent to us, nothing would ever be to us a genus or a species. Now the genus and species, in that restricted sense, as applied to organic beings, represent only ^ Critique, p. i8o (206). VOL. I. C XXXIV TRANSLATORS PREFACE. one side of that fundamental process on which all thought is founded, namely, the conception of the General and the Special. Here, again, a few pages of Kant ^ would have shown that the first thing to be explained is the process by which we conceive the genus or the general, and that the only adequate ex- planation of it is what Kant calls its transcendental deduction, i.e. the proof that, without it, experience itself would be impossible ; and that therefore, so far from being a concept abstracted from experience, it [ is a sine qua non of experience itself. If this is once clearly understood, it will be equally understood that, as we are the makers of all concepts, we are also the makers of genera and species, and that long before logicians came to define and deface these terms, they were what we now are anxious to make them again, terms for objects which have either a common origin, or a common form. Long before Aristotle forced the terms jevo