LATER GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 1 75 



ing itself in view of a system of conscious subjects, 

 embraces in its living process of self-definition for 

 every self the whole world of other selves, and 

 therein the Supreme Self, or God, and is thus strictly 

 and \.x\Ay personal, — is in the last analysis that order 

 of intelligence which we call a Conscience. 



It is plain, of course, that any proof of this de- 

 pends upon the validity of the doctrine of a priori 

 cognition ; only by our proved possession of such 

 cognition can there be any evidence that we are 

 self-active realities. It is in this reference note- 

 worthy, therefore, that Lange, as defender of agnos- 

 ticism, sees he cannot afford to admit the theory 

 upon which alone cognition strictly a priori can be 

 established. Of course, to determine that its prin- 

 ciples are indeed underived from its sensible objects, 

 consciousness must be capable of an act in which it 

 extricates itself from its world of things, and con- 

 templates its cognitive equipment strictly per se, 

 apart from actual application to objects ; an act, 

 accordingly, which transcends experience, and was 

 consequently named by Kant " transcendental re- 

 flexion " ; an act, moreover, which presupposes the 

 power not only of using the apparatus of judgment 

 upon objects that are not sensible at all, but of mak- 

 ing judgments absolutely valid, since the decision 

 that anything is organic in us must be a decision 

 upon our real naturQ — our nature as it appears to the 



