152 
P El I L O S O P H Y. 
who preceded him, have attributed to the nature of 
our organs and of our mind a confiderable part in the 
qualities which we afcribe to objedts, and that they mull 
confequently be regarded as advocates of the fubjedtive 
origin of our knowledge. Undoubtedly Plato, Defcartes, 
Pafcal, d’Alembert, feem, each according to his particular 
views, to have obtained a glimpfe of this new career, 
which Kant has opened to the philofophic mind. Pafcal, 
for inftance, has obferved, that “inftead of receiving the 
ideas of things from without, w'e impart the qualities of 
our mind to every thing we contemplate.” But, though 
thefe great men had, as it were, a diftant view of this 
path, they never adtually entered it. Whoever thought 
of attributing the honour of the fyftem of attradtion to 
thole writers anterior to Newton who feem to have formed 
fame notion of it ? Kant has not formed an epoch merely 
by conceiving the thought that in our reprefentations of 
external things the impreffion received from without is 
blended with our mode of receiving that impreffion : it is 
for having determined with precifion what part of our 
fenfations, perceptions, and proportions, belongs to our 
peculiar manner of feeling, perceiving, and judging; it 
is for having undertaken to deduce from certain primitive 
fails, well afcertained and completely analyfed, the intel- 
ledlual mechanifm of the whole knowing faculty; it is 
for having founded on this analyfis a theory of the ope¬ 
rations of thought; for having afiigned to each of our 
faculties its limits and powers; finally, for having fixed the 
bounds of the jurifdidtion of each; and, above all, the value 
of thofe boafted acquiiitions to which reafon has ever laid 
claim in the regions inacceffible to the fenfes; that Kant 
may be juftly pronounced the author of the firll fyftem of 
a truly Critical Philosophy. The refult of his fyftem 
is unfavourable to the ancient pretenfions of prefump- 
tuous reafon. Kant requires her to ceafe her ufelefs ex- 
curfions, and to renounce her imaginary cor.quefts; he 
points out to her in the limited field of experience the 
only domain which (lie has the power to acquire, or the 
right to explore, and in the progreftive cultivation of 
this foil, her legitimate fphere of adtion and the extent of 
her efforts. This may be termed the trial of Reafon at 
her own tribunal. Such is the leading idea and general 
tendency of the philofophical reform of Kant. It is now 
evident with whom this reform originated, how it fprting 
up in the mind of its author, why he has given to his 
philofophy the epithet critical, and wdiy his difciples call 
it formal philofophy. The reflections here briefly lketched 
having led Kant to affign to all human knowledge differ¬ 
ent bales from thofe furnifhed by his predeceflors, and to 
deny to the operations of fpeculative reafon the power it 
was fuppofed to poflefs of railing us to the knowledge of 
objedts out of the fphere of experience, he felt an irrefift- 
ible impulle to relolve, agreeably to his principles, and 
for the fatisfadtion of all our moral wants, the following 
Problems: 
1. What can I know ? 
2. What ought I to do ? 
3. What may I hope? 
“ In order to feparate our real knowledge from the il- 
lulions which we aflociate with it, and to determine whe¬ 
ther our Knowing Faculty can penetrate into the in vifible 
world, he commenced by fubjediing to the moll rigorous 
examination the inftrument with which man conftrudts 
his fyitems, and by means of which he thinks, combines, 
and reafons; in a word, his organ for the acqudhion of 
knowledge. Flow are the impreffions which we receive 
from without, and the adtion of the mind upon itfelf, 
converted by the intellect into real and ufeful knowledge ? 
Do the powers of intelledt extend to things inacceffible to 
the fenfes ? The refult of this inveftigation, the moft 
patient and the moft profound recorded in the annals of 
philofophy, was a thorough convidtion that the Knowing 
Faculty is given to us folely for the purpofe of generating 
experience; that, when it pafles the limits of experience, 
it miftakes its rights, and abufes its powers; that fpecu¬ 
lative reafon, notwithftanding the elevated rank it holds 
among the intellectual faculties, is not inverted, in regard 
to the fphere of its exercife, with any peculiar preroga¬ 
tive; that confequently the moft fublime as well as the 
moft ancient objedts of investigation and philofophic 
doubt , God, Liberty, Immortality, are beyond its reach. 
Having thus placed thefe great and only true interefts of 
man beyond the attacks of reafoning, Kant transferred 
them to another field, inacceffible to fpeculative objections, 
and affording an immutable balls to the truths of reli¬ 
gion. When he had completed his labours relative to 
Metaphyfics and Morals, he refumed the inveftigation of 
all the other dodtrines which borrow their principles from 
philofophy, the theory of the ideas, the fublime and 
beautiful, and that of the arts whofeobjedt it is to realize 
them; rational theology, morals applied to the focial re¬ 
lations, to legiflation, and to public right. 
“We fliall now proceed to give the fubftance of the prin¬ 
cipal w’orks which may be confidered as the eflential and 
fyrtematic parts of his courfe of philofophy. 
“Critic of Pure REASON,(Critik der reinen Vernunft, 
1781.) This title li,gnifies a critical examination of the 
Knowing Faculty, of the powers which concur in its ex¬ 
ercife, of their laws, of their operations, and of their ef- 
fedts thence refulting to man relatively to the impreffions 
which he receives, to the judgments and conceptions 
which he forms, and the ideas to which his reafon ele¬ 
vates him. The epithet pure which Kant here gives to 
Reafon, that is to lay to the intelledtual operations which 
generate our knowledge, merely (hows that he confiders it 
in itfelf , and in the forms inherent in the knowing fa¬ 
culty, diftindfly from what conftitutes the matter of our 
knowledge. This matter coniifts of the impreffions which 
objedts make upon us: thefe impreffions are then con¬ 
fidered, clafled, arranged, and combined, that is to fay, 
fubjedled to the operation of thought which forms them 
into conceptions. The conceptions ape in their turn 
compared and combined by a fuperior faculty into con- 
clufions, notions of an indefinite concatenation, Ideas. 
The power of Knowledge, therefore, coniifts of three di I - 
tincl faculties. ift. Sense, which receives impref¬ 
fions, and connedts them into Intuitions. The functions 
cf this faculty confift of two elements; the one prejive, 
the other attive. The influence which external objedts 
exercife, fuppofes in the fubjedi a capability of being af¬ 
fected by this influence, and the power to re-adt on re¬ 
ceiving the impreffion. The former is termed Receptivity, 
the latter Spontaneity. We are paffive in receiving irn- 
preflions which excite the firll exercife of ouraclivity; 
they lead to intuition, which is a produdlion of fponta- 
neity of the firft degree. Receptivity is therefore the ca¬ 
pability of having a fenfation which furnifnes the matter 
of rcprefentation ; that is, a variety. Spontaneity is the 
power of connedting this variety into a unity. It is evi¬ 
dent that Receptivity is but one of the fundtions of the 
Senfitive Faculty; it receives from external objedls, or 
from internal modifications of the foul, impreffions which 
excite the re-adlion of our Spontaneity. From the con¬ 
currence of thefe two functions, from the impulfe given 
in the impreffion which furnilhes the matter,, or the va¬ 
riety, and from the adlivity of the mind which produces 
the unit)', arifes the representation , or the confcioufnefs 
of the thing reprelented. 2d. Understanding, 
which forms Conceptions, is a higher degree of Sponta¬ 
neity, the connecting into a unity feveral intuitions at 
once. 3d. Reason, the highelt degree of Spontaneity, 
forms conclufions by connedtinga numberof conceptions 
into a unity, the refult of which is Ideas properly fo 
called, and which add to the conceptions of the Under- 
ftanding, the notion of the infinite or the alfolute. Each 
of thefe faculties has its forms or laws, to which it is re- 
ftridled in its operations, and which conftitute its nature. 
To Sense belong Time and Space, which are the general 
conditions of all our perceptions ; the frames, as it were, 
into which the objedts muft be fitted before they can 
enter 
