TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xi 



inspirer of new philosophic effort. But while the 

 Neo-Kantian school, which rules so largely the 

 thought and method of the hour even in the sphere 

 of science, has repudiated Hegel, as Kant in his last 

 days so emphatically repudiated Fichte, it has not 

 risen above the detailed investigation of Kant's 

 scientific phenomenalism ; nor has it been able to 

 secure the ground of real objective knowledge of the 

 universe, which was the chief object of his search, 

 or to transcend his critically elaborated Agnosticism. 

 In this comparative helplessness and inefficiency of 

 the Neo-Kantian philosophy, with all its admitted 

 loyalty to the great master so far as it goes, a new 

 position has been coming ever more clearly into 

 view, even on the philosophical standpoint. For, 

 under the predominating scientific influence of the 

 time, philosophy has been becoming more and more 

 scientific; and in its demand for real scientific truth, 

 as the material of rational elaboration, it is being 

 driven back from the Kant of the great ' Critique ' 

 of 1781 to the earlier Kant of the Newtonian natural 

 philosophy. In other words, the philosophical watch- 

 word of the realistic spirit of the time must be 

 enlarged and defined anew, so as to embrace a 

 return to Kant in his primary scientific work, and to 

 his original scientific creation. 



To the purely philosophical student of Kant 

 this position may appear to be inconsistent with 

 Kant's own development, or even to be refuted by 

 it. But such a view only arises from a certain 



