36 AGNOSTICISM. 



constitution of our minds, and the limitations of our 

 faculties. It is not that things actively < elude our 

 minds, but that our knowledge cannot reach them. 

 Its activity cannot penetrate to the real nature of 

 things, or disturb the serene calm of their essences, 

 the "otium cum dignitate.of the thing-in-itself." 

 We can know only appearances, not the ultimate 

 (which is also the real) nature of things. In 

 Kantian language, our knowledge is only of pheno- 

 mena not of Noumena. 



§ 12. Now, as we have already pointed out 

 (§ 3~^)» the absurdity of making unknowable realities^' 

 the causes of phenomena, it is here merely necess- 

 ary to point out how this assumption, in Kant's 

 special form, is refuted by hhnself, and contradicts 

 his own clearly enunciated principles. 



Kant himself lays great stress on the fact that all 

 the categories or fundamental conceptions of our 

 knowledge have a value and a meaning only relat- 

 ively to the world of our experience, in his ow^n 

 phrase, are ''of immanent application." Now chief 

 among these categories are the conceptions of Sub- 

 stance and Cause. Hence, on Kant's own showing, 

 the unknowable Noumena can be neither substances 

 nor causes. And yet, unless they are both, we can 

 neither say that they are, nor that they are the 

 causes of phenomena. They are not substances, i.e., 

 they do not exist, they are not causes, i.e., if they 

 did, they would explain nothing. It remains that 

 they are nothing, and that Kant's doctrine of the 

 unknowable Noumena is a mistake. 



That this is so, has been generally admitted by 

 all competent critics of Kant ; but it is astonishing 

 that this result should have led so few of them to 

 question the soundness of the basis from which 

 Kant was able to reach such absurd conclusions. 



