must once have happened in Nature, when a great revolution had altered the whole surface of the earth, land and sea had changed places, and the scene was cleared for a new creation. It was then a long time before Nature could produce a new series of lasting forms all in harmony with themselves and with each other. Strange and monstrous organisations appeared which did not harmonise either with themselves or with each other, and therefore could not endure long, but whose still existing remains have brought down to us the tokens of that wavering and tentative procedure of Nature forming itself anew.
Since, now, in philosophy, a crisis precisely similar to this, and an age of fearful abortions, was, as we all know, introduced by Kant, it may be concluded that the services he rendered were not complete, but must have been negative and one-sided, and burdened with great defects. These defects we now desire to search out.
First of all we shall present to ourselves clearly and examine the fundamental thought in which the aim of the whole “Critique of Pure Reason” lies. Kant placed himself at the standpoint of his predecessors, the dogmatic philosophers, and accordingly he started with them from the following assumptions: – (1.) Metaphysics is the science of that which lies beyond the possibility of all experience. (2.) Such a science can never be attained by applying principles which must first themselves be drawn from experience (Prolegomena, § 1); but only what we know before, and thus independently of all experience, can reach further than possible experience. (3.) In our reason certain principles of this kind are actually to be found: they are comprehended under the name of Knowledge of pure reason. So far Kant goes with his predecessors, but here he separates from them. They say: “These principles, or this knowledge of pure reason, are expressions of the absolute possibility of things, æternæ veritates, sources of ontology; they stand above the system of the world, as fate stood above the gods of the ancients.” Kant says, they are mere forms of our intellect, laws, not of the existence of things, but of our idea of them; they are therefore valid merely for our apprehension of things, and hence they cannot extend beyond the possibility of experience, which, according to assumption 1, is what was aimed at; for the a priori nature of these forms of knowledge, since it can only rest on their subjective origin, is just what cuts us off for ever from the knowledge of the nature of things in themselves, and confines us to a world of mere phenomena, so that we cannot know things as they may be in themselves, even a posteriori, not to speak of a priori. Accordingly metaphysics is impossible, and criticism of pure reason takes its place. As opposed to the old dogmatism, Kant is here completely victorious; therefore all dogmatic attempts which have since appeared have been obliged to pursue an entirely different path from the earlier systems; and I shall now go on to the justification of my own system, according to the expressed intention of this criticism. A more careful examination, then, of the reasoning given above will oblige one to confess that its first fundamental assumption is a petitio principii. It lies in the proposition (stated with particular clearness in the Prolegomena, § 1): “The source of metaphysics must throughout be non-empirical; its fundamental principles and conceptions must never be taken from either inner or outer experience.” Yet absolutely nothing is advanced in proof of this cardinal assertion except the etymological argument from the word metaphysic. In truth, however, the matter stands thus: The world and our own existence presents itself to us necessarily as a riddle. It is now assumed, without more ado, that the solution of this riddle cannot be arrived at from a thorough understanding of the world itself, but must be sought in something entirely different from the world (for that is the meaning of “beyond the possibility of all experience”); and that everything must be excluded from that solution of which we can in any way have immediate knowledge (for that is the meaning of possible experience, both inner and outer); the solution must rather be sought only in that at which we can arrive merely indirectly, that is, by means of inferences from universal principles a priori. After the principal source of all knowledge has in this way been excluded, and the direct way to truth has been closed, we must not wonder that the dogmatic systems failed, and that Kant was able to show the necessity of this failure; for metaphysics and knowledge a priori had been assumed beforehand to be identical. But for this it was first necessary to prove that the material for the solution of the riddle absolutely cannot be contained in the world itself, but must be sought for only outside the world in something we can only attain to under the guidance of those forms of which we are conscious a priori. But so long as this is not proved, we have no grounds for shutting ourselves off, in the case of the most important and most difficult of all questions, from the richest of all sources of knowledge, inner and outer experience, in order to work only with empty forms. I therefore say that the solution of the riddle of the world must proceed from the understanding of the world itself; that thus the task of metaphysics is not to pass beyond the experience in which the world exists, but to understand it thoroughly, because outer and inner experience is at any rate the principal source of all knowledge; that therefore the solution of the riddle of the world is only possible through the proper connection of outer with inner experience, effected at the right point, and the combination thereby produced of these two very different sources of knowledge. Yet this solution is only possible within certain limits which are inseparable from our finite nature, so that we attain to a right understanding of the world itself without reaching a final explanation of its existence abolishing all further problems. Therefore est quadam prodire tenus, and my path lies midway between the omniscience of the earlier dogmatists and the despair of the Kantian Critique. The important truths, however, which Kant discovered, and through which the earlier metaphysical systems were overthrown, have supplied my system with data and materials. Compare what I have said concerning my method in chap. xvii. of the Supplements. So much for the fundamental thought of Kant; we shall now consider his working out of it and its details.
Kant's style bears throughout the stamp of a pre-eminent mind, genuine strong individuality, and quite exceptional power of thought. Its characteristic quality may perhaps be aptly described as a brilliant dryness, by virtue of which he was able to grasp firmly and select the conceptions with great certainty, and then to turn them about with the greatest freedom, to the astonishment of the reader. I find the same brilliant dryness in the style of Aristotle, though it is much simpler. Nevertheless Kant's language is often indistinct, indefinite, inadequate, and sometimes obscure. Its obscurity, certainly, is partly excusable on account of the difficulty of the subject and the depth of the thought; but he who is himself clear to the bottom, and knows with perfect distinctness what he thinks and wishes, will never write indistinctly, will never set up wavering and indefinite conceptions, compose most difficult and complicated expressions from foreign languages to denote them, and use these expressions constantly afterwards, as Kant took words and formulas from earlier philosophy, especially Scholasticism, which he combined with each other to suit his purposes; as, for example, “transcendental synthetic unity of apperception,” and in general “unity of synthesis” (Einheit der Synthesis), always used where “union” (Vereinigung) would be quite sufficient by itself. Moreover, a man who is himself quite clear will not be always explaining anew what has once been explained, as Kant does, for example, in the case of the understanding, the categories, experience, and other leading conceptions. In general, such a man will not incessantly repeat himself, and yet in every new exposition of the thought already expressed a hundred times leave it in just the same obscure condition, but he will express his meaning once distinctly, thoroughly, and exhaustively, and then let it alone. “Quo enim melius rem aliquam concipimus eo magis determinati sumus ad eam unico modo exprimendam,” says Descartes in his fifth letter. But the most injurious result of Kant's occasionally obscure language is, that it acted as exemplar vitiis imitabile; indeed, it was misconstrued as a pernicious authorisation. The public was compelled to see that what is obscure is not always without significance; consequently, what was without significance took refuge behind obscure language. Fichte was the first to seize this new privilege and use it vigorously; Schelling at least equalled him; and a host of hungry scribblers, without talent and without honesty, soon outbade them both. But the height of audacity, in serving up pure nonsense, in stringing together senseless and extravagant mazes of words, such as had previously only been heard in madhouses, was finally reached in Hegel, and became the instrument of the most barefaced general mystification that has ever taken place, with a result which will appear fabulous to posterity, and will remain as a monument of German stupidity.
