Page:Immanuel Kant - Dreams of a Spirit-Seer - tr. Emanuel Fedor Goerwitz (1900).djvu/116



I cannot take it as in any way amiss in the cautious reader, if, during the development of this work, he should have grown doubtful about the manner of proceeding adopted by the author. For, as I treated the dogmatic part before the historic, and thus set reasons before experience, I gave cause for the suspicion of underhand-dealing, by having the whole thing before my mind from the start, and then feigning to know nothing but abstract considerations, so that I might finally surprise the reader who is expecting no such thing, by a pleasing confirmation from experience. In fact, this is a trick which philosophers have used at several times with very good success. To wit, all knowledge has two ends of which you can take hold, the one a priori, the other a posteriori. It is true, several modern scientists have pretended that one must, of necessity, begin at the latter. They think they can catch the eel of science at the tail, by first procuring enough knowledges from experience, and then