OF REALITY. 443 



and, as the only Noumenon, would remain, that which 

 ' is ' since it can be realised in experience. . . . The high 

 moral nature of the man, however, corrected the philo- 

 sopher, and so there appeared the Critique of Practical 

 Keasbn. In it appeared the ' self ' " (or subject) " through 

 the inherent categorical notion " (i.e., through its self- 

 assertion) " as something by itself ; and thus we get the 

 second absolute " (or reality), " the moral world. Yet all 

 the phenomena of human nature were not thereby ex- 

 plained. . . . Moreover, what is still more important, 

 the empirical world was now lost in the moral world as 

 the one world in itself " (i.e., as the truly Eeal), " a just 

 retribution for its former victory over the moral world : 

 and now there appeared the Critique of Judgment, and in it 

 . . . the confession that the supersensuous and sensuous 

 worlds must have some common though quite unknow- 

 able root, which root was the third absolute." From this 

 passage we can see how three distinct ways were opened 

 out to Kant's successors. Which of the three ways was 

 adopted would depend upon the mental bias of the indi- 

 vidual thinker, but also upon the practical interest by 

 which his speculations were prompted. To those who 

 move in the world of external realities, of the actual 

 observable things and phenomena which surround us, 

 i.e., to the natural philosophers, the problem of reality 

 would primarily consist in seeking an answer to the 

 questions What is the criterion of reality in external 

 things ? What is their essence ? How is the real and 

 actual to be distinguished from the imaginary or illusory ? 

 For a second class of thinkers whose interest lies in the 

 mental and moral, as opposed to the physical, life of 



