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 objective 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, we 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 voouμeva, 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 phenomenon 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. In every sensation there must be elements both objective and subjective; the subjective 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. negution 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, conformity 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

acquire from external impresssions on his sensibility, from any arrangement by his intelligence of the products of his sensibility, nor from the addition of the forms of pure reason to the conceptions of his intelligence. But man is known to himself by consciousness. All other beings he knows only subjectively. Himself, however, the sole exception in nature, he knows in objective 'noumenal reality. He has not, therefore, to reason or apply these forms which belong to his conceptions. He has only to observe his own nature; and in it he feels that he possesses freedom of volition, because he feels that he is able to will: he recognises a principle of duty which commands him, under the certainty of future responsibility, to act or to abstain. There are two imperious voices which say to him, Be happy, Be virtuous. In many cases, it is impossible to obey both. But the one is a voice of more rigid command than the other. It says not, if thou will, if thou can, like that which bids him be happy: it pronounces with legislative authority, thou oughtest, thou must; and self-content, and self-esteem, are the immediate punishment and reward with which it sanctions its will. His choice, however, is not constrained. He may prefer to duty the pleasures which are more immediate; but, in daring to disobey, he has already begun to endure the penalty. The duties commanded by this internal voice, are reduced by Kant to two maxims: "Regard constantly every reasonable being as an end in himself, and not as a mean of benefiting others and act in such a manner, that the immediate motive of thy will might, with advantage, become an universal law in the government of all reasonable beings." These laws exist à priori in the mind; and, therefore, are not subject to the laws of cognition. At the same time that we are conscious of their force, we discover the necessity of future reward and punishment; and, confident of immortality, "we feel, in the sanctuary of our being, that, quitting this phenomenal world, we shall find virtue and happiness united in the world of things in themselves." To responsibility, it is necessary, that there should be a judge. This judge has absolute goodness; because from him our ideas of the just and good proceed. Since all finite reasonable beings have the same practical reason, there must be a supreme universal infinite reason, which, manifesting itself to all, announces. the same laws. "This supreme reason, this absolute goodness, this judge, the rewarder of virtue, is God:" not, indeed, the God of speculation, whose existence may be asserted or denied by arguments of equal force. He is not the result of the ratiocination of man. He does not need to rest on the two premises of a syllogism, as the colossus of Rhodes stood elevated on its pedestals of rock. He is the true God, of whom no argument can deprive us; because, not having his original in cognition, he is not subject to its forms a God who is not eternal, not in space, nor in time, not a subtance, not a cause, and of whom it is not less absurd to say that he exists, than to say that he is blue or square.”

In this short view of the principles of Transcendentalism, we have endeavoured, as much as possible, to avoid the perplexity of new terms. Of these its author has been profusely liberal; and to them he is probably indebted for a large share of that favour which his system has received. In minuteness of nomenclature, there is an appearance of nice distinction,

We have added the words with advantage. In the original, it is merely may be such as to become an universal law (puisse devenir), which, if it be not elliptical, is wholly unintelligible. Il n'a pas besoin des deux prémisses d'un syllogisme pour se tenir debout, comme le colosse de Rhodes appuyé sur ses deux rochers. P. 159,

which prepossesses us with respect for the acuteness of the inventor's powers: and as, in the infinity of objects which present themselves to our observation or fancy, the resemblances and dissimilarities are infinite, there are no bounds to the multitude of classes in which they may be arranged. The resemblances in a new system are, probably, as real as in those which preceded it; and we therefore think that we have made a large accession to our knowledge, because, by a new analysis and synthesis, we have combined the results of our former experience in a varied collection of terms. Of the doctrines themselves, considered independently of nomenclature, our opinion is very different from that of the admiring disciple who now offers them to our veneration; and we are particularly astonished, that, in the country of Leibnitz, their celebrity should have been so great. We see in them a forced combination of jarring principles, rather than a perspicuous and analysing originality of reflection. The self-reviewer, who professes to examine with accuracy the first elements of his belief, doubts and asserts on the same principle; and after having overturned the dogmatism of others with the most unbounded scepticism, and raised dogmatism anew, on the loose materials of that foundation which his scepticism had overthrown, he thinks that he has avoided the objections which may be urged against both, because he has given a new name to the combination of the two. In this manner he has indeed made a partial attack more difficult, because he can entrench himself at will in either system: but his theory is not the less incoherent and feeble, when assailed as a whole. The merit of Kant appears to us to consist less in invention, than in occasional deductions from the opinions of others. It is that part of his system which may be considered as a commentary on the innate susceptibilities of Leibnitz, for which alone we consider the world as indebted to him; and perhaps in the present circumstances of philosophy, even the extravagant length to which he has pursued a just principle, may have been of favourable influence. Against the more inviting system of sensualism, in which all knowledge is supposed to consist of original impressions from without, or of abstractions or new combinations of original impressions, which has spread so rapidly from the writings of the late French metaphysicians, and which charms us even while we deny it, by its appearance of simple truth, a plain statement of the doctrine of anterior susceptibilities would perhaps have had little effect. It required a bolder enunciation of its force to surprise into discussion; and discussion, excited as it has been, in one country at least, to such enthusiasm of enquiry, will terminate, we trust, in the mutual correction of the errors of Condillac and of Kant. In examining the validity of the doctrines of transcendentalism we shall follow the order in which they were stated.

The existence of a system which is neither dogmatical in its first principles, nor altogether sceptical, it is impossible to admit. We demonstrate only from something which we take for granted; and this first principle must be stated or understood dogmatically. The critical philosopher, it is said, goes along with the sceptic in exposing the illusions of the dogmatist; but if every principle assumed be dogmatism, with the sceptic he must also rest. To go farther, and enquire into the source of each illusion, is to do nothing more than dogmatise in a new way; for he must believe the illusion to have taken place, because a certain source of illusion existed, which he must demonstrate from some principle acknowledged before, and therefore confessedly in need of support; or from another principle, which he assumes without proof. In what, then, does he differ from the theorists who have gone