THE ALLEGED SCEPTICISM OF KANT. IL ZAD 
in the sense of certainty, eludes our grasp—we are, in fact, 
the playthings of our cwn powers of infinite self-deception. 
In order still better to understand the relation in which scep- 
ticism stands to philosophy, let us put down a series of 
propositions which the first impugns and the second tries to 
establish. There is (1) the freedom of man; there is (2) the 
law of duty; there is (3) the distinction between good and 
evil; there is (4) virtue as an end in itself; there is (5) the 
immortality of the soul; and there is (6) the existence of 
a moral order of the universe, a divine providence, or, 
in simple language, the reality of God. ‘These it is the 
business of philosophy to establish on a clear basis. Pos- 
sibly not all of them may be equally clear, nor yet would a 
wise philosophy bind itself to lay down distinctions which 
should remain always and identically the same for every 
age of human progress, but, in some fashion or other, 
p hilosophy i is concerned with their establishment. and it is 
interesting to observe that, with nearly all of them, we are 
in the domain of logic, psychology, and ethics, those 
sciences which Socrates asserted to be the pr eliminary to all 
further investigation, and which in the modern world are 
included in that region of metaphysics which pugnacious 
scientists are always attempting to demolish. One thing, at 
ail events, is certain, that scepticism, in the last sense in 
which I have used the term, would have us disbelieve these 
truths, and if, from this point of view, we ask whether Kant 
has spread a spirit of scepticism through Europe, the answer 
will be a clear and emphatic negative. A sceptical attitude 
is one thing, a critical attitude is another. To deny the 
possibility of knowledge is to be as dogmatic as those 
dogmatists whom scepticism so much dislikes. But criticism 
has throughout been a friend of philosophy; an inconvenient 
friend, no “doubt, who is always referring to uncomfortable 
facts, but still a friend, on whom Kant, at all events, will 
implicitly rely. And, as I shall hope to show, the final 
outcome of the Kantian system is not in reality destructive, 
but re-constructive, finding in another sphere the reality on 
those ideas which have been impugned by criticism, and 
suggesting the only line of proof by which we can hope to 
solve the supreme problems of knowledge. 
The ultimate value of a man’s work is not always that 
which it appears at first sight. To Kant’s contemporaries 
it seemed as though he were delivering a formal attack on 
the office and functions of reason in man, but if, from the 
