l68 INTRODUCTION 



sive V This doctrine of final causes is a most essential 

 part of the Wolffian system. For, according to Wolff, 

 although nature is ultimately explicable by purely 

 mechanical laws, we cannot actually reduce it to its 

 ultimate elements, and consequently, in explaining 

 physical phenomena as they are presented to us, we must 

 continually have recourse to final causes. So also, while 

 Wolff, adopting the phrase of Leibniz, speaks of God as 

 freely choosing to create ' the best of all possible worlds,' 

 he takes * best ' as meaning not best on the whole,' but 

 rather 'best for mankind.' Thus the optimism of Wolff 

 is as shallow and arbitrary as his teleology, and it is not 

 surprising that Kant, even in the early years when he 

 followed Wolff on most points, deserted him in this 

 matter, and turned back to views more akin to the greater 

 thoughts of Leibniz. 



Relation of the Philosophy of Leibniz to that of Kant. 



In the earliest writings of Kant (who, through his 

 teacher Knutzen, was bred a Wolffian), questions regard- 

 ing space are discussed questions, for instance, as to the 

 reason why our space has three dimensions and as to the 

 possibility and reality of other spaces having more than 

 three dimensions. Kant was evidently already some- 

 what dissatisfied with the current Wolman view of space 

 and was beginning the course of inquiry that ultimately 

 led to the doctrine of the Transcendental Aesthetic, a doc- 

 trine more in harmony with the view of Leibniz than 

 with that of Wolff 2 . According to Wolff, 'real' space 

 must be distinguished from ' imaginary ' space, although 



1 Verniinftige Gedanken von den Absichten der naturlichen Dinge. Cf. 

 Ausfuhrliche Nachricht von seinen eigenen Schriften, 186 sqq. 



2 ' Leibniz's doctrine of sense as confused thought confused in 

 such a way as to make us represent the world as an order of things 

 in space and time though Kant explicitly rejects it, is in fact 

 rather elaborated than superseded by his doctrine of space and 

 time as forms of sensibility, under which alone experience is 

 possible, but which prevent what is true of phenomena from being 

 true of things in themselves, and knowledge from reaching the 

 totality which it seeks.' T. H. Green, Works, vol. iii. p. 135. 



