206 
NATURE 
[dug. 11, 1870 
ing on to or into the sun at all. And whatever be the real value 
of the arguments I. used, I certainly had not before seen them 
anywhere clearly stated. The question as to meteors being con- 
sumed in producing heat by friction in the solar atmosphere, or 
of their striking the sun’s proper surface in a solid form, is of 
very secondary importance, and would of course be determined 
chiefly by the size and nature of the meteoric bodies themselves. * 
The potential or heat result theoretically would be the same 
either way ; though in the former case it might hardly so well 
explain how whilst heated flames are shot up 60,000 or 70,000 
miles from the sun itself, that body is also probably far hotter 
than the upper regions of this very atmosphere, in which the 
meteors themselves would be giving out heat. 
Prestwich, Manchester, Aug. 5 R. P, GREG 
Iant’s Ticnscendental Distinction between Affection 
and Function 
A1 page £0 of my “ Revival of Philosophy at Cambridge,” I 
ventured to describe a question set by Mr. Mahaffy, at Trinity 
Colleze, Dublin, as ‘‘ very oddly worded.” I might haye said 
wry impro‘erly worded, and have justified the sentence ; but for 
the fact that it was the Cambridge examination-papers only that 
were the subject of my criticism in that work. My boldness in 
this censure on Mr. Mahaffy has occasioned remark. That 
gentleman is confessedly a capital metaphysician, perhaps of 
greater power than the learned professor whose work he trans- 
lated and annotated. I therefore ask for space in NATURE to 
assign the reasons on which I asserted that his question was ‘‘ very 
oddly worded,”” Here is the question : ‘‘ Explain the statement 
that his [Kant’s] doctrine of Space and Time is based on a 
transcendental distinction.” 1 think I cannot be in error in 
taking this as a reference to the A7itik der reinen Vernunft, 
Transac. Aésth. § 8, Allgemeine Anmerkungen, &c., and in 
particular to the paragraph beginning ‘‘ Die Leibnitz-Wolfische 
Philosophie,” &c., and that which immediately follows. In the 
former, and indeed in its immediate precursor, Kant is impugn- 
ing the view that affection and function (Sense and Intellect) have 
only a logical difference, as if Sense were only differenced from 
Understanding by the inferiority of its representations, in precision 
and clearness. The latter paragraph (the third of those I have 
referred to) beginning ‘‘ Wir unterschieden sonst wohl unter 
Erscheinungen das,” &c., may be thus rendered:— 
“¢ We otherwise draw a proper distinction, in phenomena, be- 
tween that which is an essential property of the intuition of it, 
and is generally valid for every one’s sense, on the one hand ; 
and on the other, that which belongs to it accidentally, inasmuch 
as it is not valid for the faculty of general sensibility, but only 
for a particular state or organisation of this or that sense.” 
This, Kant names an empirical distinction. ‘To it he opposes 
what he calls a ¢ranscendental distinction, viz., that between 
phenomena and things inthemselves, or what is involved therein, 
that between affection and function. As Kant points out, if we 
do not make the distinction between affection and function, we 
cannot explain the transcendental constituents of a phenomenon, 
and thereby we take it for a thing in itself, 2, a reality existing 
independently of our perception of it; and weso lose the dis- 
tinction between the phenomenon and the thing in itself, of which 
latter we know nothing whatever. 
Now, Mr. Mahaffy’s question concerns a certain statement. 
Whose? Well, probably, it is his own, viz., that which occurs 
in a footnote to p. 57 of his translation of Fischer’s Commentary 
on Kant’s C. p. R. Mr. Mahaffy here says, ‘‘We must not. 
confuse the epzrical distinction between real object and merely 
subjective appearance with the ¢vanscendental distinction upon 
which his (Kant’s) doctrine of space and time is based.” This 
I believe to be the topic referred to in the question. It is mani- 
festly open to two objections. Each of the terms “‘ real object,” 
and ‘‘merely subjective appearance” is equivocal. ‘‘ Real 
object” may be the phenomenal object or the noumenal object. 
‘« Merely subjective appearance” may be what Kant calls ‘‘ blosz 
Erscheinung ” or the impression which the object makes on the 
particular sense of this or that subject. The actual terms used 
by Mr. Mahaffy more properly import the distinction between 
* Suppose the case of a large mass of meteoric iron falling through the 
solar atmosphere, the first result would of course be a development of heat 
and light ; but if the original or cosmical velocity of the meteoric body was 
lost through the resistance of the atmosphere (as in similar cases terrestrially 
happens) éefore the entire mass was consumed, there might possibly result 
an actual loss of solar energy, caused by the subsequent and necessary 
melting of the residuum. 
the thing in itself and its phenomenon ; yet it is plain he means 
to follow Kant, and to speak of the distinction between. phe- 
nomenal object, and particular subjective impression. It is the 
other matter of the extract with which the question deals ; and it 
is this which I have no hesitation in pronouncing a very improper 
and misleading statement. 
Kant’s doctrine of Space and Time is zot based on this dis- 
tinction. On the contrary, the distinction is an outcome of that 
doctrine, and does not, cannot, emerge till that doctrine is 
established. The fruit of the doctrine cannot be its root ; nor 
can that which is the basis of the distinction be itself based on 
that distinction. The truth is, that Kant’s doctrine of Space and 
Time is one that concerns Sense only ; it is A’sthetic ; and as dis- 
covering the a /riori sense-elements of experience, it is called 
Transcendental Aisthetic. Accordingly it touches but one pole of 
the distinction, and only so far helps it out! How can sucha 
doctrine be properly said to be based ona distinction between the 
two poles? The very notion is preposterous, and derives, of 
course, no countenance whatever from the Critic of pure Reason. 
The extremely curt and concise manner in which I have dealt 
with the actual subjects of examination in my book was essential 
to its brevity and corresponding lowness of price. The above 
remarks will show how insecure will be any inference of the 
poverty of my reasons from the paucity of my words. 
Ilford, E., Aug. I C. M. INGLEBY 
Spontaneous Generation 
Ir there is one thing more curious than another in the 
‘«Spontaneous Generation” theory, it is the way in which so- 
called matters of fact, as proved by careful experiment, are 
brought forward by the one side to be disproved by the other ; 
one need only instance Pasteur’s famous flask experiments, which 
were thought to be so overwhelming at the time, but which were 
afterwards refuted, I think by Frémy and others. 
I notice with surprise the letters of Prof. Wanklyn and Dr. 
Lionel Beale in NATURE, with regard to the presence of germs in 
the air; there is an experiment of Pasteur’s, given in his 
“‘Memoirs upon the organised Corpuscles which exist in the 
Atmosphere, 1862,” and which I have never seen disproved, and 
if not disproved it must surely settle at least this part of the 
question. He passed a quantity of air, taking various precau- 
tions to eliminate error, which I need not here detail, by means 
of an aspirator through a plug of gun-cotton ; he then dissolved 
the gun-cotton in ether, and on examining the sediment which 
subsided in the course of an hour or two, he found abundant 
evidence of the presence of organised corpuscles. 
Bath CHARLES EKIN 
Mirage 
I HAVE just returned to England from H.M.S. Porcupine, 
having accompanied the dredging expedition as far as Lisbon. 
In reading the back numbers of NATURE, I notice in that for 
July 28 an account of an extraordinary mirage in the Firth of 
Forth on July 22. A reference to my journal shows me that on 
the same day we were dredging on the Portuguese coast, within 
sight of the Ferilhoe and Berlinga Islands, about forty miles 
north of Lisbon. The bearings of these islands and their exact 
distance, calculated by the aid of the known height of the light- 
house, gave us, of course, an exact position, which our ‘‘dead 
reckoning” also confirmed. Several solar observations, both 
for latitude and longitude, were taken by two of the officers 
during the day, both of whom always arrived at the same result, 
but this was so widely different from our position as previously 
determined by two other methods, that we were forced to the 
conclusion that there was a very false horizon, It was the only 
instance of the kind during the month I was at sea. 
Clifton, Aug. 8 Wm. Lant CARPENTER 
The Sun’s Corona 
Ir ‘‘my mathematical result was based upon data among 
which the principal point at issue was accepted as proved,” it 
will be easy for you to state what that point is, * and to quote one 
passage at least in which Mr, Lockyer has associated it with his 
theory. In this way alone can you justify the assertion in your 
last editorial note. 
So much you are bound incommon justice todo. But further, 
it would be satisfactory if a distinct statement of Mr. Lockyer’s 
*A possible action at the moon's limb suggested by Faye, Gould and 
others, —Ep. 
