Page:Immanuel Kant - Dreams of a Spirit-Seer - tr. Emanuel Fedor Goerwitz (1900).djvu/36

 18 universe. It is the mundus intelligibilis which must be distinguished from this mundo sensibili. He says that all spiritual natures are connected with one another, &c. Even now our souls stand in this connection and society and, indeed, in this very world where we are only we do not here see this association, because here we enjoy only the sensuous vision. But although we cannot see it, we are nevertheless now in this spiritual society. If this hindrance to our spiritual vision were once removed, we should see ourselves in the midst of this spiritual society, and this is the 'other world,' which is not a world of other things, but of the same things seen differently by us."

"Whether these words date from 1788 or from 1774 (Erdmann, Phil. Mon. XIX., 129, properly chooses the latter), they admit perhaps of the conclusion that Kant found himself in sympathy with Swedenborg in this contrast between the sensuous and the intelligible worlds, so that the Dissertation of 1770, and with this the Æsthetic, do stand, in however loose, still, a very positive relation to the Dreams of 1766, and so with Swedenborg himself. But the wildly fermenting must of the Swedenborgian Mysticism becomes with Kant clarified and settled into the noble, mild, and yet strong wine of criticism."

To this paragraph Prof. Vaihinger adds this footnote:

"Notwithstanding, or rather for this very reason, would it be entirely unjust to classify Kant among the 'mystics' in the modern sense. Even though certain