298 



KANT KARAMSIN. 



nf philosophy, and put to himself the questions 

 What can I know ? What is it that I know origi- 

 nally ? The acute scepticism of Hume had its 

 influence upon him. Hume proved very satisfactorily, 

 that our ideas of cause and effect are not derived 

 from experience ; but he rashly concluded, as Kant 

 observes, " that they are the spurious offspring of 

 the imagination, impregnated by custom." Kant 

 discovered that Hume had been led to this hasty 

 inference in consequence of having taken too limited 

 a view of* the great problem which he had thus par- 

 tially attempted to solve. He perceived that the idea 

 of cause and effect is by no means the only one which 

 tin- mind makes use of with the consciousness of its 

 necessity, yet without having derived it from experi- 

 ence. This he found in his endeavours to ascertain 

 what we can know, which led him to the fundamental 

 laws of the mind. Having arrived at this conclusion, 

 he strove to ascertain the exact number of these 

 original or transcendental ideas, or imperative forms; 

 that is, such ideas as we do not derive from experience, 

 but by which, on the contrary, we acquire experience. 

 In the first rank of these, are space and time. Kant 

 shows that all our perceptions are submitted to these 

 two forms : hence he concludes, that they are within 

 us, and not in the objects ; they are necesrary and 

 pure intuitions of the internal sense. Truths acquired 

 by experience never carry with them that absolute 

 certainty ; for instance, experience teaches us that 

 the sun rises every day ; that all men are mortal ; 

 yet we may imagine a day when the sun does not 

 rise, and a man who does not die ; but imagination 

 itself cannot suppose any thing unconnected with 

 s;>ace and time. This primitive intuition must have, 

 as its basis, the primary laws of the understanding, 

 without which we can comprehend nothing. As far 

 as the transcendental ideas, or, as Kant calls them, 

 categories, extend, so far extends the knowledge of 

 the understanding a priori. Kant was at great pains 

 in endeavouring to ascertain the number of these 

 categories, and he found them to be all comprehended 

 under the four classes of quantity, quality, relation, 

 and modality. The categories themselves are twelve 

 in number. Under the first head are comprised unity, 

 multitude, totality ; under the second, reality, nega- 

 tion, limitation; under the third, substance and 

 accident, cause and effect, action and reaction ; under 

 the fourth, possibility, existence, necessity. These 

 categories are necessary and indispensable for our 

 understanding, as the forms of space and time were 

 for our perceptions ; we cannot figure to ourselves 

 any thing without the relations of cause and effect, 

 of possibility, quantity, &c., which, with other words, 

 is, we cannot perceive anything except by these 

 original, necessary, unchangeable forms of thought. 

 Hence the demonstrative certainty of mathematics, 

 the objects of which space, time, quantity, &c. 

 lie in the necessity of the forms of thought, and not 

 in the range of error to which experience is subject. 

 To produce results, the categories are applied to 

 exterior objects, objects of experience, in which 

 application they are subject to error. The three 

 original faculties, through the medium of which we 

 acquire knowledge, are sense, understanding, reason. 

 Sense, a passive and receptive faculty, has, as has been 

 already stated, for its forms or conditions, space and 

 time. Understanding is an active or spontaneous 

 faculty, and consists in the power of forming concep- 

 tions, according to the allegories already given, 

 rt-liirh categories are applied to objects of experience 

 through the medium of the two forms of perception, 

 space and time. Reason is the third or highest 

 degree of mental spontaneity,, and consists in the 

 j*nver of forming ideas. As it is the province of the 

 understanding to form the intuitions of sense into 



conceptions, so it is the business of reason to form 

 conceptions into ideas. The work in which Kani 

 endeavoured to ascertain these categories and the 

 province of certain human knowledge, is his Kritik 

 tier reinen I'ernunft Critical Inquiry into the Nature 

 of Pure Reason (first edition, Riga, 1781 ; sixth 

 edition, Leipsic, 1818). Far from rejecting expe- 

 rience, Kant considers the work of all our life but 

 the action of our innate faculties on the conceptions 

 which come to us from without. The philosophy 

 thus started was called critical philosophy a very 

 poor name, but which has now become settled. Kant 

 proceeds in a similar way with morality ; the idea of 

 good and bad is a necessary condition, an original 

 basis of morals, which is supposed in every one of 

 our moral reflections, and not obtained by experience. 

 He treats this part of his philosophy in his Kritik 

 der praktischen f'ernunft a Critical Inquiry into 

 Practical Reason (1788 ; fifth edition, Leipsic, 1818). 

 Kant places unreservedly on two parallel lines all the 

 arguments for and against human liberty, the immor- 

 tafity of the soul, the transitory or eternal duration 

 of the world ; and resorts to the feelings to make 

 the balance incline, because the metaphysical proofs 

 on the opposite sides are equally great. These 

 opposite arguments on great questions are called, in 

 the works of Kant, antinomies. In (-esthetics, also, 

 he pursues a similar course, and treats it in his Beo- 

 bachtungen ilber das Gefilhl des Schonen und Erha- 

 benen (Riga, 1771) Observations on the Feeling of 

 the Beautiful and Sublime. Another important work 

 of his is the Kritik der Urtheilskraft Critical In- 

 quiry into the Faculty of Judgment (Berlin, 1790 ; 

 third edition, 1799). We must also mention Meta- 

 physische Anfangsgrilnde der Rechtslehre Metaphy- 

 sical Elements of Legal Science (1797; second edition, 

 1803); Metaphysical Elements of Ethics (1797; 

 second edition, 1803 ; Metaphysical Elements of 

 Natural Science (1786 ; third edition, 1800); a Prag- 

 matical Treatise on Anthropology (1798; third edition, 

 1821) ; Of Perpetual Peace (1796) ; Religion con- 

 sidered within the Limits of Reason (1793) ; the only 

 possible Evidence for demonstrating the Existence of 

 the Deity (1763; last edition, 1794) . Most of Kant's 

 smaller treatises, full of acute remarks, are contained 

 in his Kleinere Schriften Smaller Works (Konigs- 

 berg and Leipsic, 1797, 3 vols.), and in the collection 

 edited by Tieftrunk (Halle, 1799, 3 vols). Hufeland, 

 the physician, published Kant's work, Of the Power 

 of the Mind, by mere Resolution, to control its mor- 

 bid Ftelings, with notes (second edition, Leipsic, 

 1824). Kant, of course, met with many opponents, 

 the most prominent among whom were Mendelssohn, 

 Hamann, Feder, Garve, Plainer, Flatt, Jacobi, Her- 

 der, and particularly G. C. Schultze, as. ^Snesidemus 

 (1792), and in his Kritik der Theoretischen Philosophic 

 (Hamb., 1801, 2 vols). But his adherenls were Ihe 

 more numerous party, and his philosophy has been 

 taught in all the German universities, excepting some 

 Catholic ones. A very good enumeration of Kant's 

 works, and those of his opponents, as well as of his 

 commentators and followers, is to be found in Tenne- 

 mann's History of Philosophy, or Cousin's Manuel de 

 FHistoire de la Philosophic, traduit de V Allemaiid de 

 Tennemann (Paris, 1829, vol. 2). 



KAPNIST. See Capnist. 



KARA, in the Tartar languages ; black, as Kara- 

 mania (black people, country of the). In opposition 

 to another word of the same idiom which signifies 

 white and/ree, kara has been used to signify tribu- 

 tary, e. g., kara Kalpacks (tributary Kalpacks). 



KARAITES. See Caraites. 



KARAMSIN, NICOLAS, imperial Russian historio- 

 grapher, born in 1765, educated at Moscow, in the 

 house of professor Schaden, entered the military ser- 



