LATER GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 167 



der of mere inadvertence is no doubt stimulated 

 by the incessant activity of the pure categories, 

 but its primary provocative is that very deepest 

 principle of our conscious life, the consciousness of 

 our relation to other minds ; and it is this principle 

 which Lange's analysis persistently overlooks. 



This primal consciousness of our relation to others 

 is the real secret of our belief in noumena, and 

 contains their only true meaning ; and it supplies 

 the element which carelessly and wrongly united 

 with Space and Time gives rise to a sensuous mis- 

 interpretation of things-in-themselves. This primal 

 conscious principle Lange, as just noted,^ quite omits 

 to investigate ; and this omission is the central 

 defect of his analysis of the nonmoion. The over- 

 sight leaves his account of the nature and function 

 of this notion seriously inadequate — a deficiency 

 of which something further presently.^ By the 

 misapplication of Space and Time to the thing-in- 

 itself, we are prompted to think it extended and 

 enduring ; and this, even when we view it as the 

 soul or as God. Here is the source of that me- 

 chanical psychology and that faultily anthropo- 

 morphic theology — we should call it zoomorphic, 

 instead, if we spoke correctly — which have always 

 been the bane of religion, the constant cause of 

 religious scepticism and indifference. With the 



1 See p. 165, above. 2 ggg p_ ly^^ below. 



