THE INFINITY OF THE WORLD. 47 



same ; in short, that our conception of Space is not 

 an abstraction from an attribute of the Real, a uni- 

 versal mode of the interaction of the Existent, but 

 simply an ideal a priori form of intuition, under 

 which things must appear to us. Even though, 

 therefore, metaphysically speaking, ultimate entities 

 may be " monads," yet, phenomenally, their appear- 

 ances must be subject to the laws of spatial intuition 

 and composite. Secondly, Kant argues that the 

 Self or Soul is not an instance of a simple sub- 

 stance, because its apparent simplicity is merely 

 due to the fact that in declaring its own substant- 

 iality, it is contemplating itself; that if it could be 

 externally perceived, it would probably display its 

 compositeness. 



Now every one of these assertions may be tra- 

 versed. We need not suppose, and indeed scientific 

 atomism has always refused to suppose, that the 

 mathematical infinite divisibility of Space holds good 

 of real objects ; nor that ideal Space, which is con- 

 ceived, but never seen, is like real Space ; nor again 

 that Space is an a priori form which exists independ- 

 ently of the interactions of the bodies that occupy 

 it. Further, it may be remarked that Kant here 

 illustrates both of the two great fallacies of his 

 doctrine : (i) he forgets the impotence of epistemo- 

 logy and allows himself to treat his a priori Space 

 as a condition and not as a mode of existence, and 

 so regards it as something which can prescribe to 

 reality its mode of behaviour. (2) He makes the 

 impossible distinction between phenomena and 

 noumena. Lastly, we may point out that Kant's 

 argument against the existence of absolute sub- 

 stances is bound up with his doctrine of the Self, 

 presendy to be considered, and need only wonder 



