here sees to be an arbitrary and invalid procedure. His theory 

 of knowledge is so far free from that barren metaphysical dogma. 

 To get from the idea to the transcendent object, or to get from 

 such an object to the idea both are equally impossible. To 

 require that knowledge obtains its validity as knowledge only 

 when it corresponds to such objects is to set up an impossible 

 criterion of knowledge. The objects themselves can never be 

 known, and correspondence can never be affirmed. Furthermore, 

 when Kant called attention to the fact that scientific knowledge 

 was not merely subjective but had objective validity, he likewise was 

 emphasizing a distinction of great importance. Theories or im- 

 aginations, according to Kant's view, are subjective and are not 

 part of scientific knowledge in the strict Kantian use of that 

 phrase. As he himself says, the reproductive imagination "is 

 subject to empirical laws only, namely, those of association," 

 and "is of no help for the explanation of the possibility of know- 

 ledge a priori, belonging, therefore, to psychology, and not to 

 transcendental philosophy ". l In emphasizing the objective validity 

 of scientific knowledge as against any theories of knowledge, 

 empirico-idealistic or otherwise, which would throw doubt upon 

 this, Kant accomplished much. It needs, however, to be remem- 

 bered that though theories in science may be without the objective 

 validity which Kant claimed for connected perceptions, they 

 nevertheless play an important role in science. It was because, 

 no doubt, Kant was so close to the mathematical work of his day 

 and because, at that time, the importance of theory in physics 

 and chemistry and biology was not so generally recognized as to-day 

 that he laid little importance upon this aspect of science. 



Notwithstanding the splendid work of this critical philosophy, 

 notwithstanding the arguments, so conclusively cogent, urged by 

 Kant against the current rationalism, Kant himself was still a 

 rationalist. To realize the truth of this we have only to attend to 

 his view of the nature of the understanding and of reason. We find 

 that these words are not used to designate certain classes of facts 

 or certain conscious processes, but are used to designate the facul- 

 ties which, in some way, produce the concepts and Ideas attributed 

 to each. Kant assumes, for example, that "as every phenomenon 



1 Op. Cit. P. 758. 



118 



