ESTIMATE OF LEIBNIZ S PHILOSOPHY 171 



of sense, it satisfies the requirements of Newtonian 

 mathematics even better than if it were an independent 

 entity. On the other hand, while it belongs to perception 

 or direct intuition and is therefore not, as Leibniz and 

 WoMf held, a relation or order among things which are 

 prior to it, yet it is subjective or ideal, it belongs to our 

 minds, and accordingly the difficulties inseparable from 

 the Newtonian view of space (as expounded by Clarke, 

 for instance) are avoided. 



.But mere sense-perception under the forms of space 

 and time is not, according to Kant, a complete experience. 

 It requires the complement of conception, which is the 

 function of the understanding. Here Kant believed him- 

 self to be in complete opposition to Leibniz, and yet it 

 may well be doubted whether the opposition is really so 

 great as Kant supposed it to be. In the Critique of Pure 

 Reason Kant does draw a much sharper line between per- 

 ception and conception than Leibniz did. Kant may be 

 said to regard the difference as one of kind, while for 

 Leibniz it is a difference of degree. Leibniz, as we have 

 seen, gave to perception an exceedingly wide meaning, 

 a meaning which includes conception and representation 

 of every kind, whether conscious or unconscious. But 

 Kant's l perception ' is limited to sense-representation. 

 Nevertheless Kant's t perception ' is avowedly abstract, 

 and the confused perception, which is Leibniz's name for 

 sense-knowledge, is abstract also, though in a somewhat 

 different way. In fact, for Kant the distinction between 

 perception and conception is a distinction between abstract 

 elements in a concrete whole of experience, while the 

 corresponding distinction in Leibniz is a distinction be- 

 tween degrees of perfection in one quality or function. 

 Thus for Kant sense-perception is abstract, because its 

 reality always implies a complementary element, while 

 for Leibniz it is abstract because it is imperfectly deve- 

 loped, because it contains the potentiality of greater 

 perfection. The weakness of the Kantian position is its 



