48 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



39. 



The term 

 Criticism 

 as used by 

 Kant. 



fact, the whole edifice of knowledge, learning, and doc- 

 trine, as handed down from former generations, had to 

 be put in order and newly arranged. 



The precept of Leibniz had to be carried out in its 

 integrity, " Didici in mathematicis ingenio, in physicis 

 experimentis, in legibus divinis humanisque auctoritate, 

 in historicis testimoniis nitendum esse." ] 



Such process of sifting or arranging, of confirming or 

 discarding, existing opinions, and generally of establish- 

 ing the true canons of research in dealing with historic- 

 ally accumulated material, had already been sporadically 

 set agoing in various branches, but notably in the 

 domain of classical learning, about the time when the 

 natural and exact sciences had been put upon an inde- 

 pendent and secure foundation by the great natural 

 philosophers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 

 We have to go back to the names of Erasmus, of Scaliger, 

 of Casaubou, and of Bentley if we wish to trace the 

 beginnings of that great volume of learning and research 

 which has gradually acquired the generic name of Philo- 

 logical Criticism. 



Towards the end of the eighteenth century the term 

 criticism had been introduced in this country to denote 

 discussions relating to subjects of fine art and literature. 2 

 We find Kant in Germany introducing the term to 

 denote preparatory investigations which he deemed neces- 

 sary in order to place philosophy upon a secure founda- 

 tion, and to refute the scepticism of Hume and the 



1 " I have learnt that in mathe- 

 matics we have to rely on genius, 

 in physics on experiment, in law, 

 human and Divine, on authority, in 



history on testimony." 



2 See especially Henry Home, 

 Lord Kames' ' Elements of Criti- 

 cism' (1761). 



