io6 PRODUCTION OF NATIONALITY 



that man is the maker of his own universe, and so 

 destroyed the sense of reahty. But even Kant ad- 

 mitted to being overwhelmed by two things that 

 could fill the field of his consciousness. Every 

 Kantian must remember the beautiful passage begin- 

 ning : " Two things fill my mind with ever renewed 

 wonder and awe the more often and deeper I dwell 

 on them — the starry vault above me, and the moral 

 law within me." We may well agree that the starry 

 vault is a supreme example of the reality and ex- 

 ternality of the physical universe. In an hour of 

 quiet philosophy we can sit down and persuade 

 ourselves that the softness and colours of our chair, 

 the hardness of the table, even the distant rumour 

 of the streets, all that we know of the extended 

 world, and therefore the extended world itself, reside 

 in our brain. In a moment of logical exaltation we 

 can extend the idealism to include the Kaiser and 

 von Bernhardi, Mr. Bernard Shaw and Sir Roger 

 Casement — although the most logical mind would 

 shrink from Berkeley's explanation of what happens 

 to them when they are out of our tlioughts. But 

 not even Kant himself, not the most bulbous German 

 brain, can refuse externality and reality to Sirius 

 and Aldebaran, to meteors and comets, to the sun 

 and planets in their courses, to the vast abysses of 

 time and the recesses of star-sown space. 



I agree with Kant in his selection of man's con- 

 sciousness of the moral law as a second supreme 

 wonder. But I disagree profoundly when he speaks 

 of it as resident in the individual, transcendentally 

 or otherwise, and so reaches the beguiling phrases : 

 " I am responsible only to myself ; I am alone ; I 



