Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/368

 34* KANT. I through the senses. Similarly nothing that is intuited in i time is a thing in itself, so that we intuit ourselves only as we appear to ourselves, and not as we are. The merely empirical reality of space and time, the limitation of their validity to phenomena, leaves the cer- tainty of knowledge within the limits of experience intact ; for we are equally certain of it, whether these forms neces- sarily belong to things in themselves, or only to our intu- itions of things. The assertion of their absolute reality, on the other hand, involves us in sheer absurdities (that is, it necessitates the assumption of two infinite nonentities which exist, but without being anything real, merely in order to comprehend all reality, and on one of which even our own existence would be dependent), in view of which the origin of so peculiar a theory as the idealism of Berke- ley appears intelligible. The critical theory of space and time is so far from being identical with, or akin to, the theory of Berkeley, that it furnishes the best and only defense against the latter. If anyone assumes the absolute or transcendental reality of these forms, it is impossible for him to prevent everything, including even our own exist- ence, from being changed thereby into mere illusion. But the critical philosopher is far from degrading bodies to .mere illusion; external phenomena are just as real for ■ him as internal phenomena, though only as phenomena, it i^^ue, as (possible) representations. Phenomenon and illusion are not the same. The tran- scendental distinction between phenomena and things in themselves must not be confused with the distinction com- mon to ordinary life and to physics, in accordance with which we call the rainbow a mere appearance (better, illu- sion), but the combination of sun and rain which gives rise to this illusion the thing in itself, as that which in universal experience and in all different positions with respect to the senses, is thus and not otherwise determined in intuition, or that which essentially belongs to the intuition of the object, and is valid for every human sensibility (in antithesis to that which only contingently belongs to it, and is valid only for a special position or organization of this or that sense). Simi- larly an object always appears to grow smaller as its distance