318 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [Vou. VIII. 
there is no use in hunting for an objective reality. The most common 
feature of all reality is that of being subjective and consequently the 
greatest ‘‘objectivity”’ in thinking consists in keeping absolutely to the 
subjective truth. 
This all applies to space. - Space as we know it is real. It is like all 
realities, a part of our consciousness. Everybody must admit that he 
cannot know any objective space if objective means outside of conscious- 
ness. Prof. Kiilpe, in his magnificently sketched exposition of the phil- 
osophy of Kant* while admitting this, asserts that it is nevertheless by 
no means sure that space is objectively not as we have it in consciousness. 
He says it is quite possible that space is objectively exactly as we ex- 
perience it. 
But I might ask here what can be meant by this ‘‘is.”” If we speak 
of any object and say it ‘‘is’’ so, for instance it is green, hard, and so and so 
large, etc., that means we perceive these properties with our senses, i.e., as 
parts of our consciousness. Any quality which we attribute to a thing must 
be either directly perceivable or at least be thought as perceivable. When 
we say that a certain chemical element has such and such specific gravity, 
specific gravity means nothing but a certain complex of inter-related 
states of consciousness. When we affirm that a substance has so and so 
many molecules, atoms, ions, or electrons, to the cubic millimeter, we at 
least assume that we could perceive those particles if we could change the 
condition of our perception in a certain way. Of course as long as we 
cannot do that, all statements about molecules, atoms, ions, and electrons, 
are matters of belief, not of knowledge. They neither possess the assert- 
ive certainty of directly given facts nor the apodictic certainty of possible 
relations (mathematical axioms and their derivatives). To speak of prop- 
erties of space beyond these which are possible in consciousness is utterly 
self-contradictory. All Kiilpe can say if he does not want to fall back 
into the errors of naive realism which Kant has so clearly pointed out 
(though he is himself guilty of some relapses) would be, that we could 
believe something might correspond to the space of our subjective 
intuition, but we could never know it, never predicate anything of it. 
It could not be space at all, for that would endow it with properties of 
states of consciousness, and last not least, correctly speaking, we could 
not say that it was ‘‘something.’’ For the property of having part in 
consciousness is common to all facts. To speak of purely objective facts 
would involve, therefore, a contradiction in terms. It isall right to call 
a certain complex of facts i.e. of phenomena a ‘‘thing,” but to speak of a 
thing hidden behind the perceived phenomena and then even to pretend 
* Aus Natur und Geisteswelt, Emanuel Kant, Darstellung und Wurdigung. 
