78 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



straction does not affect the content of what is abstracted. This 

 is, of course, the logical form of the ontological doctrine so fa 

 miliar to us in rationalism, that the essential nature of a thing is 

 not affected by a change in its relations. 



In the foregoing pages, our discussion of criticism has clung 

 very closely to Kant, and has referred in great measure to specifi 

 cally Kantian doctrines. We intend it, however, to have a larger 

 scope, applying not only to what is peculiarly his, but to the 

 critical philosophy generally. To the reader the objection may 

 seem pertinent, that the development of the critical philosophy 

 by Kant s successors has so transformed the original doctrine, 

 that our arguments, as applied to its later forms, become irrele 

 vant. But if criticism be taken to include all the doctrines of 

 all the thinkers that have drawn their inspiration from the Kan 

 tian Critiques, one may safely say that no thesis will be found to 

 hold concerning it. Let us, then, define criticism as the theory, 

 that thought has a certain definite form or mode of procedure, 

 which is universally characteristic of it, and, indeed, is essential 

 to its systematic unity; and that the description of this form 

 constitutes, therefore, a body of absolutely necessary truth. 

 That the argument advanced in the foregoing pages with reference 

 to the critical theory as held by Kant applies at the same time 

 to criticism as here defined, will appear evident, we believe, upon 

 consideration. 



If thought has a form universally characteristic of it, or in 

 other words, conforms to some universal law or laws of procedure, 

 then the formulation of such law or laws becomes a set of neces 

 sary propositions valid for all experience. These necessary propo 

 sitions, then, must form a body of truth whose relation to 

 other knowledge not thus necessary forms precisely the same 

 problem with which rationalism struggled in vain. Criticism s 

 issue with rationalism and empiricism lies in its conception of 

 universality as the formal aspect of all knowledge. If universal 

 ity is, indeed, a characteristic of all experience so far as deter- 



