XVI KANTS UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY 



Prussian Hume'; I would rather call him a Prussian 

 Comte, with less interest no doubt than Comte in 

 the mere formal interrelations of the sciences, but 

 with a far deeper insight into moral and religious 

 truth, and a much more fertile elaboration of the 

 possibilities of individual thought. And Kant, with- 

 out any sense of self-contradiction, has put beyond 

 question this view of his consistent interest to the 

 last in physical science, as the chief work of man's 

 logical thought, by his never ceasing to lecture in 

 his peculiarly attractive way on the details of 

 Physical Geography and Anthropology, by his 

 pausing in the prosecution of his critical philo- 

 sophy to systematise the principles of Natural 

 Science in 1786, by his virtually indicating the 

 great discovery of Thermodynamics four years 

 after he wrote the Critique of Pure Reason, and 

 by dealing with the influence of the moon on the 

 weather so late as 1794. We must take Kant in 

 his entirety if we are to understand him rightly in 

 any relation, and not interpret him from a mere 

 corner of his system as a philosopher, or by dealing 

 with one only of his many suggestive ideas. 



As I have said elsewhere: 'Kant undoubtedly owed 

 much to the fact that he was a thorough scientist 

 before he became a speculative metaphysician. His 

 own development was typical of the revolution of 

 thought which has produced modern philosophy: that 

 certain knowledge of the real world must be the basis 

 \ of all true knowledge of the ideal world, or that 



