L 40 RECONSTRUCTION. 



long as consciousness is consciousness 0/ something, 

 of something more than mere existence, we cannot, 

 says Hume, infer from it our own existence. 

 ReaHty could not, apparently, be attributed to any 

 soul that was not capable of being reduced to an 

 absolute blank. But this implies, in the first place, 

 the fallacy that mere existence is possible, undis- 

 tinguished by any particular content, that a mere 

 fact can be found, which is not determined by a 

 certain character (cp. ch. ii. § 3). And secondly, one 

 must wonder who could be supposed to be in the 

 least concerned to assert the existence of such a 

 perfectly void soul, and who need be dismayed at 

 the discovery that his soul could never be caught 

 in such a condition of fatuous nudity. The exist- 

 ence of the soul does not depend on its capacity to 

 dispense with all content, nor is any slur cast upon 

 it by the fact that the contents of consciousness vary. 

 The ideal to which the variations of consciousness 

 point is not a soul which has been annihilated by 

 the loss of all its contents, but one of which the 

 contents have attained to stability and perfection. 



§ 4. Kant's objection to the reality of the soul is 

 similar to Hume's. But, like many of his doctrines, 

 it is a compromise, not altogether successful, between 

 Hume and the old metaphysics, and so rejects a 

 good deal of Hume's argument. Kant recognises 

 the necessity of admitting at least an epistemological 

 reality of the soul, as the principle on which the 

 possibility of consciousness and the unity of know- 

 ledge depends. As such, it is the soul which forms 

 the fleeting series of impressions, thoughts, etc., into 

 a continuous system, and thus makes a connected 

 consciousness possible. 



Yet Kant strenuously maintains that the soul is 



