THE ALLEGED SCEPTICISM OF KANT. 191 
to in my paper is one that I should be prepared to defend. I 
mean as to the endless series of causation. I was merely putting 
in my own fashion the form in which Kant has treated that 
particular argument in the Dialectic of Reason, which comes at 
the end of the Critique of Practical Reason. The whole point turns 
obviously on whether you speak of phenomenal causes or not. 
But the question is complicated by this further point—that many 
people only use cawse in the sense of phenomenal cause. There, | 
think, Mr. Cherrill is quite right. You cannot explain cause 
at all, unless there be something more than mere phenomenal 
cause. Phenomenal causes, such as they are, do not end the 
whole business, but they are for ever pointing to things that are 
not phenomenal but real—the ultimate laws by which the universe 
1s governed. 
I am deeply grateful for the kind way in which you have 
referred to what I have said, and with your leave, Mr. Chairman, 
I will add no more on this occasion, 
The meeting was then adjourned. 
REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING PAPER. 
Professor J. H. Bernarp, D.D., writes :— 
Trinity College, Dublin. 
I have read Dr. Courtney’s paper on Vhe Alleged Scepticism of 
Kant with interest. As to the general drift of Kant’s teaching, 
when studied as a whole, I am quite in agreement with him. The 
reason why Kant is always set down as a “‘sceptic”’ is that people, 
as a rule, read nothing of his save a few chapters of the Kritik of 
Pure Reason. As Dr. Courtney points out, the teaching of the 
Practical Reason is, that the practical necessities of life inevitably 
drive us into a recognition of the existence of God and a belief in 
the eternal future of the human soul, even though we may not be 
able to give a completely satisfactory justification to intellect of 
these great assumptions. And this positive side of the Critical 
Philosophy also appears in the Kritik of Judgment, a work which 
Kant regarded as the coping stone of his critical structure. That 
God exists, Kant seems to say to us, we cannot doubt, though 
