DUAI^ISM 



connected totality. In every attempt to form a unified 

 and complete view of things we encounter these un- 

 solvable antinomies, or mutually contradictory theses, 

 for both of which sound proof is available. Thus, for 

 instance, physics and chemistry say that matter must 

 consist of atoms as its simplest particles; but logic 

 declares that matter is divisible in infinitum. On the 

 one theory time and space are infinite; on the other 

 theory, finite. Kant attempted to reconcile these con- 

 tradictions by his transcendental idealism, by the as- 

 sumption that objects and their connection exist only in 

 our imagination, and not in themselves. In this way he 

 came to frame the false theory of knowledge which is 

 honored with the title of "criticism," while as a matter 

 of fact it is only a new form of dogmatism. The an- 

 tinomies are not explained by it, but thrust aside; nor 

 was there more truth in the assertion that equal proof 

 is available for theses and antitheses. 



The famous work of Kant's earlier years. The General 

 Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755), was 

 purely monistic in its chief features. It embodied a fine 

 attempt "to explain the constitution and mechanical 

 origin of the universe on Newtonian principles." It was 

 mathematically established forty years afterwards by 

 Laplace in his Exposition du syst^me du monde (1796). 

 This fearless monistic thinker was a consistent atheist, 

 and told Napoleon I. that there was no room for " God" 

 in his Mecanique celeste (1799). Kant, however, after- 

 wards found that, though there was no rational evidence 

 of the existence of God, we must admit it on moral 

 grounds. He said the same of the immortality of the 

 soul and the freedom of the will. He then constructed 

 a special "intelligible world" to receive these three ob- 

 jects of faith; he declared that the moral sense com- 

 pelled us to believe in a supersensual world, although 

 pure theoretical reason is quite unable to form any dis- 



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