Page:Immanuel Kant - Dreams of a Spirit-Seer - tr. Emanuel Fedor Goerwitz (1900).djvu/92



Aristotle says, somewhere, "When we are awake, we have a common world, but when we dream, everybody has his own." It seems to me that it ought to be possible to reverse this latter proposition and say, if, among different human beings, every one has his own world, it may be supposed that they dream. With this understanding we will view the various imaginary worlds of these air-architects which each one inhabits quietly to the exclusion of others. Behold, for example, him who inhabits the Order of Things as it was framed by Wolf out of but little building material obtained from experience, but many conceptions gotten on the sly. Or we will view those who inhabit the world produced by Crusius out of nothing, by means of a few magical sayings about the thinkable and the unthinkable. And, as we find that their visions are contradictory, we will patiently wait until the gentlemen have finished dreaming. For if, at some time, by the will of God, they wake up, i.e., open their eyes to such a view as does not exclude conformity with other people's common sense, then none