OF THE SPIRIT. 



277 



reduced itself ultimately to a philosophical interpretation 



of the three verities of the traditional Protestant re- ie. 



, . . ^. . Kant's three 



ligion of his age ; the existence of the Divine Being, verities. 

 the Freedom of the Human Will, and the Immortality 

 of the Soul. Although Kant did not enter upon a psycho- 

 logical analysis of the difference between the way in which 

 natural and supernatural truths are borne in on the human 

 mind, he distinctly apprehended that there existed a 

 twofold order of ideas, distinguished by him as em- 17. 



Twofold 



pirical and transcendental. The former had its origin 

 entirely in the world of the senses, the latter in the 

 original constitution of the reflecting mind; the former 

 supplying the material, the latter the form of know- 

 ledge. By this formula Kant acknowledged the cor- 

 rectness of Locke's position, as well as of the position of 

 Leibniz. 



Thus, quite lately, 0. Willmann 

 in the three volumes of his 

 ' History of Idealism.' The history 

 of philosophy is there represented 

 according to the following scheme. 

 First, the ascending branch ; from 

 Plato to St Thomas, we have an 

 ever richer and deeper develop- 

 ment of genuine idealism which 

 considers ideas to be the objective 

 constitutive principles of reality. 

 With Thomas Aquinas the summit 

 is gained. Then comes with the in- 

 trusion of nominalism the descend- 

 ing development, followed by the 

 fall of the Reformation, which leads 

 further on to Aufldarung and 

 Revolution. In the philosophy of 

 Kant the spirit of negation has 

 found its most perfect expression ; 

 it forms the opposite pole of Thorn- 

 ism. In it the false idealism finds 

 its last consequences : the subjec- 

 tivity of all ideal principles. The 



subject posits itself with unlimited 

 self -exaltation as the bearer of all 

 reality, as the creator of natural 

 as well as of moral laws. The 

 autonomy of reason is the true 

 nerve of Kantian philosophising : 

 Kant the absolute freethinker ' a 

 predicator of the collapse of faith, 

 morals, and science.' 'The at- 

 tempt to praise Kant as a true 

 German philosopher is quite ab- 

 surd. Kant is a cosmopolitan, 

 follows the English, is enthusiastic 

 for Rousseau, raves for the French 

 Revolution ; to German truthful- 

 ness Kant's subversive sophistry 

 stands in complete opposition.'" 

 The last quotations are taken 

 from Willmann's ' Geschichte des 

 Idealismus ' (vol. iii. pp. 503, 528) ; 

 the matter is more fully dealt 

 with by Paulsen in his ' Philosophia 

 Militans' (2nded., 1907). 



