OF KNOWLEDGE. 



345 



dence, more generality and stability than attaches to 

 the casual and fleeting impressions of our senses. This 

 view crystallised in the doctrine of the Ideality of time 

 and space. 



Secondly, having deprived external reality of all the 36. 



-" o ^ _ -^ _ The sensible 



attributes with which the human mind describes it, and the 



intelligible. 



maintaining that theee refer only to its appearance 

 in time and space, not to its intrinsic essence, he never- 

 theless did not destroy what remained in the human 

 mind as a definite, though empty, idea of a thing. This 

 essence of reality, the truly real, as opposed to the 

 merely phenomenally real, Kant described as the Nou- 

 menon, that which we are obliged to think though we 

 cannot see or describe it. For this he coined the 

 characteristic term, the " Thing in itself " ; the un- 

 knowable substance and cause which lie behind the 

 phenomenal world. He identified it with the Intel- 

 ligible as opposed to the merely Sensible. This remain- 

 ing phantom, a relic of earlier metaphysics, which Kant 

 did more to perpetuate than to explain and correct, 

 has done incalculable mischief in subsequent systems of 

 philosophy.^ 



^ It was especially unfortunate 

 that this doctrine of the "Thing 

 in itself " became, for a consider- 

 able time, the centi-al point of 

 interest in the literature whicli 

 sprang up abundantly around the 

 Kantian philosophy with the object 

 of confirming or refuting it. The 

 novelty of the term gave it ex- 

 aggerated importance, as did like- 

 wise a mistaken explanation given 

 of it by Reinhold, who otherwise, 

 as we shall see presently, was one of 

 the most successful expounders of 

 Kantian ideas. "In all these dis- 



cussions it is important to note 

 that they referred only to the 

 ' Critique of Pure Reason,' and that 

 none of those who led them under- 

 stood at all the ultimate connection 

 of the Kantian ' Critiques.' Just 

 for this reason the notion of the 

 ' Thing in itself ' which, with Kant, 

 was the connecting link between 

 theoretical and practical philos- 

 ophy, was here considered only in 

 its theoretical meaning, and as 

 such, it was rightly found to be 

 untenable. Thus it has ccme 

 afbout that this conception, which 



