268 Academy of Berlin. 



agitated at all lime?, has been, difcufled at prefent with more 

 intereft than ever. It is certainly of great importance; and 

 it is much to be wiflied that the proofs on both fides were 

 carried to fiich a degree of perfeftion, and rendered fo fatif- 

 faftory, as to enable philofophers to form a decifive opinion 

 on this point without falling into fyncretifm, which, by fub- 

 ftituting indifference for intereft, is highly detrimental to the 

 progrefs of philofcphy. The Academy does not enter into 

 the ideas of thofe who confider it as demonftrated by mathe- 

 matical evidence, that a part of our knowledge has its origin 

 merely in the nature of our underftanding : on the contrary, 

 it is perfuaded that to this opinion effential objeftions may 

 be made; obje<Slions which hitherto have not been anfwered 

 in a fatisfaftory manner; efpecially as it is convinced that 

 there are very ftrong proofs in favour of the opinion which 

 deduces all our knowledge from experience, though thefe 

 proofs, perhaps, have not yet been difplayed in their full light. 

 The Academy, being defirous to contribute as much as pof- 

 iible to the folution of this problem, propofes as the fubje6t 

 for which the Clafs of Philofophy ought to adjudge a prize : 



<* To demonftrate, in an inconteftable manner, the origin 

 of all our knowledge; either by prefenting arguments never 

 before employed, or arguments already employed, but exhi- 

 bited with more clearnefs, and with fuch force as to obviate 

 every objeAion." 



But as 'none of the memoirs tranfmittcd to the Academy 

 have been thought fatisfailorjf, the Academy finds itfelf 

 obliged to defer the adjudication of the prize till the public 

 fitting of the month of Auguft 1801. It repeats at the fame 

 time its invitation to philofophers to contribute as much as 

 in their power towards fixing the important point of the ori- 

 gin of human knowledge, by going back to the evidence, in 

 order that the refult may be, either that the fcience of meta- 

 phyfics is a chimera, or that its principles are fo determined 

 that we cannot rcfufe to them univerfixlitv, and fuch a com- 

 parative force of evidence, that there can no longer be room 

 for difputing ref[)Ciiling principles; and that all deviations 

 muft be confideied merely as logical errors, of too little con- 

 fequence to p'.oniotc a jMge lor fyliLiTiS and the fpirit of parfv. 



The 



