150 



ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



Kant suspected, and its contradictions are pro- 

 founder. The limiting thing-in-itself Kant assumed 

 as a reality, or, at all events, he declined to doubt 

 its existence ; but to carry the a priori principle to 

 its proper conclusion, we must now recognise the phe- 

 nomenal nature of this notion itself. Our all-encom- 

 passing distinction between thing and conscious 

 presentation, between noumenon and phenomenon, 

 is itself a judgment a priori; in fact, an illusion of 

 that order. The illusion arises from our constitu- 

 tional tendency to put the positive pole of the 

 category of relation — Substance, Cause, Agent — as 

 if it were something additional to the system of 

 experience, instead of merely a term within this. 

 It is thus itself a contradiction, one not simply 

 functional but organic, and therefore provokes to end- 

 less other contradictions. 



And not only, let us steadfastly remember, is it an 

 illusion; it is an illusion which, though we recognise, 

 we can never dispel, — any more than that of the 

 moon's enlargement on the horizon, the bending of 

 the stick when thrust into the water, or the appari- 

 tion of the rainbow. But, like these, it will mislead 

 only such minds as persist in the stolidity of the 

 peasant; and just as the cited illusions, when com- 

 prehended, not only do not disturb our science, but 

 continue to quicken the pleasure of existence by 

 their variety and their beauty, so will this ground- 



