KAXT. 231 



ond it is appliod to an ab.soliilo verity ; iii tlio third it supports itsrdf by 

 the hypotheses of the iirst taken as absolute verities, in a science thus 

 disincinbcred I cannot vecoonise philosophy. Upon conihtions so dil- 

 ferent, there would cease to be any science. The critical doctrine would 

 then come to the aid of those empirical, mystical and skeptical doc- 

 trines which mutually conspire against the truth ui' philosopliy. 



Thus the doctrine of Kant which presents a great unity in its method 

 IS ultimately neither one nor complete. The three criticisms, which are 

 the essential elements, do not form a systematic whole. The CrUicism 

 of the practical reason is not contained in that of the pure reason. Jt 

 fills up its gaps, and if it is not precisely its refutation, it is opposed 

 to it in the sense that it restores what the other has suppressed, and re- 

 makes what the other has unmade. It contradicts it in attributing to a 

 certain subjective knowledge an authority to the destruction of which 

 the first criticism was in general consecrated. As to the Criticism of 

 the judgment^ it was not at all announced by the other two, it is not ne- 

 cessarily derived from them \ it fills up a void, it repairs an omission , 

 but it is by no means united with what has preceded, and one does not 

 exactly know whether it gives a subjective or an objective knowledge, 

 for we do not find in it either the practical authority of morality, or 

 the transcendental abstraction of critical psycholog}'. From these three 

 great works results a doctrine inconsistent and still incomplete, omitting 

 whole sciences which belong to philosophy. Kant undoubtedly re- 

 lumed to these in other works. He has thrown out upon all questions 

 ingenious or profound views, but these do not alvvays rest upon the 

 grounds of his doctrine. Far from gaining by being attached to it, they 

 there lose in authority, for they arc there nothing but the gratuitous and 

 hypothetical sports of a reason deprived of the intuition of everything 

 that is not itself. We might then say, if such an expression had not 

 the impertinent appearance of paradox, that the doctrine of Kant does 

 not constitute a philosophy, understood in the sense of a system of the 

 nature of things. It is a poweiful psychological method, a profoundly 

 original criticism of science, an introduction henceforth necessary to all 

 philosophy, an admirable system morality also, and in fine a rich col- 

 lection of fragments full of spirit upon all the problems of philcsophy. 



