72 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



subsistence of an orthodox rationalistic substance, with, to be 

 sure, the important defect, that it is unknowable; and analogy 

 would lead us to expect that the latter would represent the critical 

 standpoint. But such does not at once appear to be the case. 

 The reality of the phenomenon, as Kant treats it, is rather sug 

 gestive of empiricism. In his own phrase, it is &quot;that in the phe 

 nomenon which corresponds to the sensation . When one speaks 

 of the reality of anything which is not at the moment perceived, 

 that can only mean that it is connected, by means of the analogies 

 of experience, with what is so perceived, so that it coheres with 

 it in a single larger whole. The absent phenomenon thus owes 

 its reality to the present phenomenon a singular and most in 

 structive parallel to Hume s doctrine of belief. 



But when we pause to reflect upon the nature of the coherence 

 with present reality, which gives reality to the absent, we see 

 that here too the critical theory has worked its transformation. 

 This coherence is not a mere association reducible to the con 

 tiguity of mutually independent elements. It is the organization 

 of experience under categories. To put the matter differently, 

 the older notion of reality has developed for Kant into two inti 

 mately united, but nevertheless formally distinct, factors, 

 reality, in the sense above defined, and objectivity. When, there 

 fore, we would rightly estimate the significance of Kant s realitas 

 phenomenon, we must recall that only an object can be thus real; 

 and that an object is an object only by reason of its internal (and 

 external) organization. We must, then, even add that it is not 

 simply the absent phenomenon which owes its reality to the 

 work of thought, but the present phenomenon as well, since it is 

 only as an object that it could be real. That is to say, apart from 

 the thought-activity, nothing would be present save an utterly 

 meaningless image, to which the attribute of reality would have 

 no application whatsoever. 



We have already seen that Kant s critical problem, How are 

 synthetic judgments a priori possible? arose through his recognition 



