SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 367 



sophical thought. His contribution to our present subject of inquiry 

 consisted of two parts: {a) the distinction between Verstand and Ver- 

 nunft, (&) the conclusions gained in the last division of his master- 

 piece, the Critique of Pure Reason.' The former was destined to 

 exercise decisive effect on the relation between science and philosophy; 

 the latter, as I understand the 'Dialectic/ met much the same fate 

 as Hume's destructive analysis — it was misinterpreted or overlooked. 

 We may therefore take it first, and very briefly. In the third part of 

 the 'Critique of Pure Reason,' entitled 'Dialectic,' because it deals 

 with subjects capable of dialectical treatment, Kant shows that the 

 metaphysic of his predecessors must be adjudged a complete failure. 

 Mathematics and physics exist, for they have objects; but metaphysics 

 has no existence, its objects are unthinkable, humanly speaking. Take 

 the soul (or self) as a self-contained thing, occupying a place among 

 the other self-contained elements of human life ; interpret the universe 

 as a self-contained object, one among other objects of experience; con- 

 ceive God as a self-contained 'agent acting constantly according to 

 certain laws,' and residing far out in the depths of space; in a word, 

 let your fundamental conceptions be those of the Descartes-Newton 

 type; then, when you come to analyze them, you will find of a surety 

 that no such soul or universe or God can possibly enter into human ex- 

 perience. This Kant proves, and so cuts the throat of the metaphysic 

 which ruled science and philosophy from the Eeformation till his day. 

 On the whole, philosophers have not yet fathomed his meaning, while 

 scientific men have been quick to seize his point, that metaphysic does 

 not exist, forgetting completely that his work was preliminary to the 

 necessary question: What, then, are soul, the universe and God? To 

 declare, with a certain quasi-scientific school, that these are mere ideas, 

 helps us not a whit. For the declaration, as they do not see, destroys 

 the validity of science also. Thus, on a broad view, we have still to 

 reckon with this aspect of Kant's thought. 



The distinction between Verstand (understanding) and Vernunft 

 (reason) — the English words fail to translate, unfortunately — stands 

 in very different case, having been productive of momentous conse- 

 quences. Kant's early scientific researches led him to see that a 

 dynamical account of the material universe ought to be substituted for 

 the static conception of Newton. Indeed, he hit upon the idea of pre- 

 organic evolution; but, as thermodynamics lay in the future, experi- 

 mental evidence lacked, and he was switched on to another line by 

 Hume. According to Hume, knowledge is phenomenal, and phenome- 

 nal only. It consists of what apppears to be; can have no commerce 

 with what is. By analysis, the most complex ideas can be proved to 

 possess a phenomenal basis. The faculty of analysis, which deals thus 

 with phenomena, Kant called Yerstand. But he insisted that Hume's 



