forth from their present obscurity and neglect those rewards to exertion, which confer, if they be but rightly considered, a deeper respect than wealth, and an honour more lofty than titles.*

The following Essays, with many others of minor importance, were intended to form additions to those already selected on Miscellaneous Literature. I find however that I have already exceeded the space allotted to this valuable department. On the Literature of the Greeks and Romans, extracted from a brilliant review of Madame de Stael's work on the influence of Litera ture, Vol. xxi. page 24, and well known to be the production of Mr. Jeffrey.-An exceeding y interesting and learned Criticism on Madame de Staël's celebrated book on Germany, attributed in various publications to Sir James Mackintosh. Vol. xxii. page 199.-A curious History of the Commentators on Dante, composed by Ugo Foscolo, a man of first-rate genius and extensive acquirements. Vol. xxix. page 453.-An admirable Contribution to an early number of the E. Review from one of its first and most eminent writers, the late Francis Horner, Esq. I allude to his clear and argumentative review of Dugald Stewart's Statement of Facts respecting the Appointment of Mr. Leslie to the Situation of Mathematical Professor in the University of Edinburgh. Vol. vii. page 113.-A Sketch of the History of Roman Literature, written by Dr. Brown, late Editor of the Caledonian Mercury, and the author of several excellent papers in the E. Review, Vol. xl. page 375; and an Essay on the Character and Authorship of the Epistola Obscurorum Virorum. Vol. liii. page 180.

PART FIFTH.

METAPHYSICS AND MORAL SCIENCE.

EXPOSITION OF KANT'S PHILOSOPHY.*

PHILOSOPHY, in relation to the process which it adopts, is considered by Kant as of three kinds. It is dogmatical, when it founds a system on principles assumed as certain; sceptical, when it shows the insufficiency of those principles which the dogmatist has assumed; and critical, when, after adopting the objections of the sceptic, it does not rest satisfied with doubt, but proceeds to enquire, from what principle of our nature the illusions of the dogmatist have arisen, and, by a minute analysis of the cognitive powers of man, traces the whole system of his knowledge through all the modifications of its original elements by his independent and fundamental forms of thought. It is in this analysis, that the spirit of the critical philosophy is to be found; and, till the process have become familiar, the whole system must appear peculiarly unintelligible: but, when the reduction of all our feelings to their objective and subjective elements is well understood, though we may still be perplexed by the cumbrous superfluity of nomenclature, we are able to discover, through the veil that is cast over us, those dim ideas which were present to the author's mind. According to Kant, then, it is necessary, in investigating the principles of knowledge, to pay regard to the two sets of laws, on which the nature of the object and of the subject depends. It is from their joint result, as directing the influence of the thing perceived, and as directing the susceptibilities of the percipient, that knowledge which is thus in every instance compound, arises; and this compound of objective and subjective elements might be modified equally, by the change of either set of laws; as the impression of a seal may be varied alike, by a change of figure in the gem, or by a difference of resistance in the parts of the wax which are exposed to its pressure. The subjective elements are by Kant denominated forms; and each function of the mind has its peculiar forms, with which it invests its objects, uniting with them so intimately, as to render apparently one that feeling, which cannot exist but as combined of different elements. Nothing, therefore, is known to us as it is; since we acquire the knowledge of an object only by the exertion of those laws which necessarily modify to us the real qualities of the object known. Philosophy therefore, in relation to its belief of external things, is empirical, when it believes them to exist exactly as they appear to us in each particular case; it is transcendent, when, using reason to correct the false representation of the senses, it believes that the objects of our senses exist in a manner really known to us, after this correction, though different from their immediate

Vol. i. page 257. January, 1803.

†The introductory observations to this Essay consist of a brief outline of the Life of Kant, with remarks on the manner in which his System of Philosophy has been expounded by M. Villers. See E. Review, Vol. i. pages 253-256.

VOL. III.

10

appearance in particular cases. In both these views it has relation only to their objectivity, or to their qualities as independently existing in themselves; and is therefore erroneous, as those qualities cannot be discovered by us. It is transcendental, when, considering them in relation to our own powers, it investigates the subjective elements, which necessarily, in the exertion of our independent laws of cognition, modify the qualities or elements of the object as perceived. Since it is thus impossible to know the world as it is, we must content ourselves with the knowledge of the phenomenal world, and which that reality which is merely subjective. The system of our world is thus idealism, but an idealism in which we may safely confide; though we must be assured of erring, whenever we ascribe to it objec tive certainty. There exists, however, an independent system of noumena,* or things in themselves, though we cannot know them as such, from the unavoidable modification of every objective element by our own forms of cognition. To determine what is subjective in each peculiar perception, the nature of the subject must be investigated. This subject is self, the being to which we give the name of I, when we say, I know, I will. It has three great faculties; cognition, by which we know; volition, by which we act; and judgment, which is in some measure intermediate, being neither wholly speculative, nor absolutely practical, but determining to action, and thus forming the bond of our knowledge and our will.

Pure cognition is divided into pure sensibility, pure intelligence, † and pure reason; the product of sensibility being sensations, the products of intelligence conceptions, and the products of reason ideas. This division is not inconsistent with the absolute fundamental unity of the cognitive being, that unity, of which we are conscious in all the diversity of our feelings, and without which we could not exist. The threefold action is even in some measure aided by the unity itself; for, from a law of our nature, wę strive, by a perpetual synthesis of comparison and arrangement, to bring the diversity of our sensations, as nearly as possible, to the oneness of which we are conscious in ourselves.

Pure sensibility, comprehending all those feelings in which space and time are involved, is external, when it refers them to space, and internal when it refers them to time. In itself nothing is larger or smaller, or before or after; for space and time, the forms of sensibility, by which a subjective world arises to us, are not, in any degree, objective and real, but are modes of our own existence as sentient beings. It is impossible for us to imagine any body which does not exist in space; it is impossible for us to imagine any feeling which does not exist in time. With the abstraction of these, every thing to us perishes; but the certainty of space and time remains with us, though every object were conceived to be annihilated. Hence, space is an indispensable condition of the possibility of bodies, but bodies are not

* This word is evidently an abbreviation of the Greek voouueva, which, in our opinion, would be much more applicable to external things after they had undergone the forms of our cognition. If the terms must be adopted, we should be inclined to reverse the use of them, and call a pheno menon whatever affects the external sensibility, and nooumena the subsequent compounds of perception.

The original term is verstand (entendement), which may be more simply translated understanding; but the term we have chosen, which is merely the Latin corresponding word with an English termination, however singular its use may at first appear, is preferred by us to its more common synonym, from the very circumstance that it is less common. In the use of a term to which we have been long accustomed, there is much danger of error, when the limitation of its meaning is not precisely the same; and understanding, in its usual acceptation, is significant, not of a single function of the mind, as in the transcendental vocabulary, but of the union of all the intellectual faculties.

necessary to the possibility of space. That it exists in ourselves à priori, and independently of experience, is shown by the impossibility of acquiring it from without. Space includes three dimensions. Sight, smell, taste, hearing, are evidently incapable of affording these: nor is touch, to which Condillac ascribes its origin, more susceptible. We gain the idea, says he, when our hand passes over a surface: but he has already supposed a surface and a hand; and what resemblance is there of a simple feeling to a body of three dimensions? Nor can space be supposed to arise from abstraction, for by abstraction we separate only simple qualities: but space is not a simple quality, capable of being perceived separately in bodies; it is the necessary condition of their existence, implied in the first perception of the infant, which supposes an object external to itself. sation there must be elements both objective and subjective; the subIn every senjective must be permanent as ourselves, the objective fleeting as the occasion. Space, therefore, being invariably present amid all the apparent changes of quality, is subjective in us; occasioned, indeed, by the sensation, and rising in it; but not an objective part of it, depending on experience. If that were its origin, we should be allowed to conclude, only, that all the bodies yet known to us are extended, and not that all bodies must have extension. Yet the certainty of this we believe with equal force; since, space being a subjective condition of knowledge, we feel that every impression, by a law of our nature, must be invested with its form. On this, the apodictic or demonstrative certainty of geometry depends; for, as pure space is the form of the external sensibility of all men, the extensive properties of pure space must, to all men, be the same. It is a peculiar distinction of mathematical ideas, that they consider not intensive but extensive qualities, all the degrees of which are equally capable of being rendered sensible, so as to correspond exactly with a sensible object. Of degrees merely intensive, as of the varieties of force in physics, and of benevolence in ethics, no delineation can be given.

The internal sensibility, by which we discover our own mode of being, with all the changes that take place within us, gives us the idea of time, in the succession in which it represents to us our feelings. All the arguments with prove space to be a form of our cognition, are equally applicable to time. By this, we invest our internal affections with succession, as we created to ourselves a subjective world by the investiture with space. From succession we derive our idea of number; and time being, like space, an universal form, the apodictic certainty of arithmetic is easily explained.

If we had sensibility alone, the world would be merely a number of detached beings; it would not be that great whole which we call nature. This is produced to us by intelligence; that power, which, receiving the products of sensibility, establishes their relations, and, arranging them in classes, forms conceptions. As, in sensation, there are the necessary forms of space and time; so are there necessary forms of intelligence, to which Kant, adopting the well-known term invented by Aristotle, gives the name of categories. These are reduced to four orders; quantity, quality, relation, and modality: to the first of which belong the categories: 1. unity; 2. plurality; 3. totality: To the second, 4. affirmation or reality; 5. negation or privation; 6. limitation: To the third, 7. substance and accident; 8. causation, or the laws of cause and effect; 9. reciprocity of action and reaction: To the fourth, 10. possibility and impossibility; 11. existence and non-existence; 12. necessity and contingence. No act of intelligence can

take place without the union of these four forms of thought, in some one of their modifications. Like space and time, however, they are no part of the object, but exist à priori, and independently of all experience in the subject who intelligises. Thus, to take an instance from the categories of quantity, the idea of number cannot form a part of any object. We hear a sound; we again hear a sound: but, when we say that we have heard two sounds, we have invested a product of sensibility with a form of our own intelligence. These fundamental conceptions may be combined, so as to form other conceptions equally independent of experience; as when, from substance and causation, we derive the conception of force: or they may be united with the pure forms of sensibility; as when, from the addition of temporary succession to existence and non-existence, we form the conception of commencement. For determining to which of the categories our sensation belongs, there are four forms of reflection, corresponding with the four orders for the first, identity and diversity; for the second, confor mity and contrariety; for the third, interiority and exteriority, by which is meant the distinction of the attributes of an object as originally existing in itself, or as acquired from without; for the fourth, matter and form. These four reflective conceptions, though like the categories, existing à priori, differ from them, as not being applied to the products of sensibility, to fix their relations and mode of being, but to the conceptions of objects, to fix their appropriate place in the system of our knowledge.

Pure reason is the third mode of our cognitive faculty. It is applied to our conceptions, and is that which considers them as absolute. Its three great ideas are, absolute unity, absolute totality, and absolute causation. These become objects to us, or ideals of pure reason, by investing them with our own felt and fundamental unity; which individualises absolute unity, as in the human soul; or absolute totality, as in the universe: and the ideas acquired from practical reason, of absolute power and goodness, are, in like manner, individualised in God. Every act of reasoning implies an absolute idea. Thus, when we say, all bodies gravitate, and the air, being a body, must therefore have weight, the validity of our conclusion depends on the universality of the major proposition. To these absolute ideas we are led, by an irresistible impulse of our nature towards infinitude. They are forms existing à priori in the mind; for our senses give us the perception only of that which is divisible, limited, caused. With the unity of the human mind, or the infinity of the universe, or the great source of phenomenal nature, no corporeal organ can make us acquainted.

Each of the cognitive functions having thus its peculiar forms, we are guilty of an amphiboly, when we ascribe to one the pure forms of another: as when, in the material atoms of the philosophy of Epicurus, we invest our external sensations with the idea of absolute simplicity; or when, adding to the same sensations the absolute idea of causation, we erect a theory of atheistic materialism. In like manner, the combination of absolute ideas with our internal sensibility, "of which the form is time, and the general representation spirit," gives rise to all those systems of spiritualism. which suppose a simple, unextended soul. The perplexing controversies on the divisibility of matter are the product of a double amphiboly, which confounds sensation and conception.

The preceding summary comprehends the laws of cognition. But man does not exists to know alone. He wills; he acts; he is the subject of practical reason. The knowledge of his powers and his duties he cannot