contains a manifold, and different perceptions are found in the 

 mind singly and scattered, a connection of them is necessary, such 

 as they cannot have in the senses by themselves". 1 It is the active 

 power for the synthesis of this manifold, attributed finally to the 

 understanding, that constitutes the essential nature of the under- 

 standing which accomplishes this synthesizing work through the 

 categories. But, instead of commencing with the unitary complex 

 consciousness or experience, and proceeding by analysis to obtain 

 the "different perceptions", which are never given, as Kant sup- 

 posed, "singly and scattered", but are always abstracted products, 

 instead of commencing with that complex experience and finding 

 in a similar way what are the actual processes which might be 

 subsumed under the head of understanding and reason, Kant 

 postulated these as faculties which unite perceptions assumed 

 single, and which provide by their own spontaneity the concepts 

 and Ideas of which Kant speaks. In other words, the objects 

 of science in Kant's view, are constructed and not given. This 

 was a great mistake, but one which is easily accounted for on the 

 ground that the only psychology of which he took cognizance was 

 the faculty psychology of Wolff. It was a mistake which later 

 idealists have by no means succeeded in overcoming, and any 

 present-day theory of knowledge, if it follow the Kantian pro- 

 cedure in this respect, may, to that extent, be likewise termed 

 rationalistic. It is from the given whole of experience that one 

 must obtain by analysis the single perceptions as well as the con- 

 cepts and the Ideas of which Kant speaks. 



Before closing this critical estimate of the work of Kant, it is 

 necessary to recall the fact that the Ideas of Reason, which, from 

 the standpoint of the first critique, are regulative only, become in 

 the second critique constitutive. Now this, at first glance, seems 

 passing strange. Has Kant found it necessary to contradict his 

 original position? Does he argue that, after all, the Ideas of 

 Reason do give us knowledge of objects? The key to the solution 

 of this apparent difficulty lies of course in the distinction which 

 Kant drew between theoretical knowledge and practical know- 

 ledge. From the standpoint of science, i.e. of theoretical know- 

 ledge, the objects corresponding to the Ideas of Reason are prob- 



1 Op. Cit. P. 98. 



119 



