try to withdraw themselves from it, but by so doing they arouse 

 just suspicions, and cannot claim that sincere respect which reason 

 pays to those only who have been able to stand its free and open 

 examination". 1 



Now an adequate system of philosophy will be based, Kant 

 holds, upon criticism, but a criticism more consistent and thorough- 

 going than that implied in scepticism, which contents itself with 

 being merely destructive and tends always to a fresh dogmatism, 

 a criticism which implies an analysis of the human understanding 

 including what Kant called the pure reason. By such a criticism 

 the inadequacy of scepticism, based upon empiricism, and of dog- 

 matism, based upon rationalism, will be shown and the way pre- 

 pared for a more consistent and more secure philosophy. Then 

 weariness and indifferentism will no more prevail but philosophy, 

 as a true science, will occupy its proper place and perform its 

 true function. 



But the critical insight of the keen-minded Kant was directed 

 not only to the confusing and contradictory conditions in the 

 realm of philosophy; he turned his attention, likewise, to the 

 natural sciences of his day, and, there, he saw two things which 

 impressed him strongly. He saw first, that, because of a proper 

 method, the sciences were building, upon a secure and firm founda- 

 tion, a vast edifice of knowledge; but he saw, secondly, that, in 

 the realms of physics and mathematics, there was prevalent 

 amongst the special scientists a problematic view of the nature of 

 space. Before dealing with the Kantian analysis of the method 

 of science, it will be w r ell to trace briefly the history of this view 

 of space as it was held from the time of Galilei on. This will be 

 especially appropriate in as much as it will serve to show the sig- 

 nificance of Kant's own doctrine of space and will also exhibit a 

 very close relation between the developments in the natural 

 sciences and in certain of the philosophical investigations of the 

 time. 



The theory that there is an objective, absolute space is one 

 which finds its more modern expression, first, in the writings of 

 Galilei, Hobbes and Des Cartes. These men all accepted what is 

 generally known as the theory of the subjectivity of the sense- 



1 Max Muller's Edn. P. XIX. 



96 



