Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/448

 426 FICHTE. never furnished this deduction for the forms of intuition, V space and time. In order to understand that intelligence, and why intelligence, must act in just this way (must think / just by means of these categories), we must prove, and not merely, with Kant, assert, that these functions or i/ forms are really laws of thought — or, what amounts to the same thing, that they are conditions of self-consciousness. Again, even if it be granted that Kant has explained the properties and relations of things (that they appear in space and time, and that their accidents must be referred to sub- stances), the question still remains unanswered, Whence ^ comes the matter which is taken up into these forms? So long as the whole object is not made to arise before the eyes of the thinker, dogmatism is not driven out of its last corner. The thing in itself is, like the rest, only a thought in the ego. If thus the antithesis between the form and the matter of cognition undergoes modification, so, further, the allied distinction between understanding and sensibility must, as Reinhold accurately recognized, be reduced to a common principle and receptivity be conceived as self- limiting spontaneity. In his practical philosophy also > Kant left much unfinished. The categorical imperative is susceptible of further deduction, it is not the principle itself, but a conclusion from the true principle, from the injunction to absolute self-dependence on the part of reason ; moreover, the nature of our consciousness of the moral law must be more thoroughly discussed, and in order to gain a real, instead of a merely formal, ethics the relation of this law to natural impulse. Finally, Kant ^ never discussed the foundation of philosophy as a whole, but always separated its theoretical from its practical side, and Reinhold also did nothing to remove this dualism. In short, some things that Kant only asserted or presupposed can and must be proved, some that he kept distinct must be united. In what way are both to be accomplished? Since correct inferences from correct premises yield cor- rect results, and correct inference is easy to secure, every- ' thing depends on the correct po.int_^if__departure. If we neglect this and consider only the process and the results of inference, there are two consistent systems: the dogmatic