230 GERMAN rniLorHn>iiY. 



revert. Wo have no consciousness of that which is deficient in our 

 cognitions. The deficiency of our ideas is, in fact, to us a thing that 

 docs not exist. This negative of cognition, }.>y the very suppo.'^ition, 

 never makes its appearance. It is therefore very difficult to explain how 

 we perceive it; and by Kant's system it is impossible. In general, 1 do 

 not know what Kant would say if it were to be shown him that lie lias 

 no consciousness at all of the subjective, or to speak more correctly, 

 that the subject has no consciousness of all that it knows itself to be. 



Tliese objections aflect the basis of the critical psychology. We 

 observe again, that that psychology is neither scej)licism nor idealism 

 j»roperly so called, although it has, in some points, deferred to the scep- 

 tical objection, or accepted of idealistic distinctions. But it is a ration- 

 alism throughout 5 it is a reason observed by the reason. Descartes and 

 Leibnitz both professed a true rationalism. Since Kant, I know of no 

 rationalism that has not seized upon the criticism, that has not adopted 

 its principles, except in their negative aspects ; but I still look for some 

 one to complete the criticism, to fill up the voids, and to bring forth a 

 rational dogmatism. In the present state of human knowledge, a dog- 

 matical phdosophy growing out of the critical pliilosophy appears to 

 me the ideal of philosophy. 



Our observations hitherto have touched only upon the Criticism of 

 ihc jmre reason. Bui this is not all of Kantianism, although it deter- 

 mines and characterises it. Complete it by the other works of Kantj 

 erect the whole by the combination of its parts, into a system of phil- 

 osophy, and you will meet with invincible diiliculties. A common bond 

 is wanting to all the parts of the science ; for none of its parts will be 

 a science upon the same conditions. Thus morality is obligatory for 

 the practical reason, or rather the practical reason is not reason except 

 in so far as it judges and directs our senlimenls and voluntary acts, in 

 that aspect moral notions arc neces.sary to it ; in other words, it cannot 

 avoid thinking that evil is evil, and tlial good is good, and that vvc ought 

 to act conformably to this distinction. But this necessity is absolutely 

 of the same kind as that which rests upon the pure reason. The prac- 

 tical reason and the pure reason arc only one and the same reason, viz. 

 which is e([ually obliged under tliose two names to believe and to tliink 

 according to its own proper authority. Wlionce comes it then that tiie 

 Criiicism of the pure reason is given as an hypothesis and that of the 

 ■pracl.ical reason is a certainty ? To the two former criticisms succeeds 

 a Criiicism of judgment in which the ideas oi the Criticism, of the 

 jnire reason aie hypothetically taken as true. Thus in the first work 

 tlic science reduces itself to that of a necessary hypothei^is ■, in the sec- 



