228 CEIIMAN PHILOSOPHY, 



cxpenoiicc is fatal, that which comes from the pure reason is necessary 

 iluw Ijetu'ccn a fatal contingency and a necessary suhjectivity is error 

 possible ? On the one side, what is the ground, what is the substance 

 of it ; on the other, what is the principle that could perceive and estab- 

 lish it ? On what shall we base any judgment to recognise error and 

 to correct it, if there is not within us an absolute principle superior to 

 us and which judges with authority of the subjective itself, that is to 

 say, an objective reason, absolute in itself, relative by its situation, or 

 as it has ever been said, a participation of the primitive and universal 

 reason r 



A second consequence would be, that the doctrine of universal sub- 

 jectivity would render doubt impossible. Whence could it proceed ? 

 What is the pure form, what is the category of the understanding that 

 could engender doubt ? All notions a priori are necessary. Necessary 

 in themselves, why should they not be so in their application .-' And 

 why, consequently, do they not imperiously force conviction ? They 

 could admit doubt but upon a single condition, that of the existence of 

 a faculty, a superior power which, in virtue of a right which it feels, or 

 rather of a law which does not resolve itself into any category, into 

 any notion, disposes of both notions and categories j of a clear-seeing 

 principle which chooses them according to the cases in order to deter- 

 mine them in each case by a particular application, which employs them 

 freely, not in the sense that it makes an arbitrary use of them, but in 

 the sense that it finds only in itself the law of that determination, a law 

 implied and without a formula and which is as the very nature of the 

 reason. But undoubtedly the reason which thus judges could not but 

 judge as it docs judge; it knows that it should judge well, and that it 

 is constituted for that purpose. It does not make the truth ; it recogni- 

 ses it; but it knows and perceives at the same time that it is not infalli- 

 ble-, yet it ha.s not always an immediate intuition of truth, that is, ii 

 does not arrange willi an instantaneous certainty the notions and the 

 lacultics that are under its orders. Is it a j^riori, is it by experience 

 that it knows itself to be thus limited thus imperfect ? That curious 

 question is here of no importance , it is sufficient that it lias been sliown 

 that doubt is impossible to the subjective reason of Kant, and supposes 

 an absolute reason without which all intelligence such as he describes, 

 would be a dead letter, or rather a thing inert or disorganised. 



Tliis is still more true of methodical doubt, of i)rudcnt and curiou.s 

 doubt which precedes the accurate acquisition of seieiice. in general 

 doubt supposes an objective, an absolute. There is nothing in the sub- 

 ivctive bv wliicli m jiidi;e of the i-iubjeetivr Theie i> wanting to tin 



