ICANT. 229 



pure reason of Kant, if it i.s not to corlain point the absolute reason, the 

 possibility of perceiving that of which it is ignorant, of questioning that 

 which it imagines, knows, or thinks. But, in fact, nothing is more cer- 

 tain than that quality; philosophy, among other things, is impossible 

 upon any other terms, and the Criticism of the pure reason is one of the 

 most memorable monuments of the reason judging the human thought, 

 and deciding with an authority represented by the author himself as de- 

 monstrative, the part of the subjective and of the objective, that is, es- 

 tablishing absolute truth. The criticism of pure reason, what is the 

 meaning of this title? A criticism supposes a critic, a judge of the 

 pure reason. That title, in truth, signifies the absolute reason judging 

 the human reason. 



But, some one may say, thai the one does not differ from the other , 

 it is always either the human reason that judges or the absolute reason 

 that is judged. I admit it; but the critical reason, or in a single word 

 the criticism of Kant, in so far as it criticises or judges the pure reason, 

 is distinguished from this, although it cannot be separated from it. If 

 takes it for the objective in so far as it is the object of observation, that 

 is, of experience, ; ft gives there by the consciousness a certain intui- 

 tion, and in judging it, submits it to a certain law, it refers it to a typo 

 which it finds in itself, and which it imposes upon it, that is to say, l<> 

 an absolute. Did Kant assert that it is subjective in both cases ? He 

 does not indeed assert it, and it is true that it is always the human rea- 

 son ; but in so far as it judges, it is taken otherwise than when it is 

 judifed, and those two words criticism and jmrc reason, although desig- 

 nating in the last analysis the same subject, are in reality two points of 

 view, two sides, two situations, in the language of Hegel, two moments ., 

 and the words translated and read in that proposition, philosophy judges 

 the human mind, must not be a useless tautology. 



Thus there is no room for the existence of error and of doubt in 

 the human mind of Kant; and, in fact, 1 do not recollect that the rea- 

 son of error is given anywhere in his works, or even that the possibility 

 of false or of true judgment, of false or true ideas is anywhere well ex- 

 plained by him. This omi.ssion would be natural in a system condemn- 

 ed by its principles to suppose tlio jjossible falsity or illusion of all our 

 judgments, of all our ideas, even of neces.sary ones. .Apparently doubt 

 is tlierc nowhere presented as one of the con.sequcnces, even possible, 

 of the nature of the faculties i>f the me, and this oinission is equally 

 explicable in a system that nuku:^' jU notiun.-- necessary m the subject 

 that conceives; tlieai 



Hcniark, hi passing, .in iniiiuitaiir pumi to which ( i^halt eUewhere 



