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 404 CKITICAL NOTICES : do. Hume had clearly seen this when he declared the origin of sensation inconceivable, and added that the question had no im- portance for the special problem which he had raised. On this question Kant found himself in exactly the same position as Hume. Kant, says Hoffding, saw in things per se the cause not only of the matter of experience, but also of its form. If this is so, the forms are what they are only as long as their cause is constant in its function. While, therefore, knowledge founded on the validity of the forms is only hypothetical, it is no longer merely pheno- menal, since it teaches us in some degree how the thing per se works. This point understood, Kant's whole system alters its character. Its apriorism and phenomenalism are lessened, and its inconsistency disappears. These three features of his philosophy are connected with his distinction between matter and form a dis- tinction which, even psychologically considered, is gravely doubtful. Kant, says Hoffding, does not assert the reality of free will as a faculty of absolute initiative in action, but only its reconcilable- ness with the fact that the empirical character is subject to laws of nature. According to our historian, he has failed to make good this assertion. In the first place, how can the intelligible be the cause of the empirical character if in this case the temporal relation be, as it must be, excluded? In the second place, if the empirical stands to the intelligible character as effect to cause, a purely empirical account of the origin of character is precluded. In the third place, since the intelligible character itself is no freely choos- ing agent, Kant's ' freewill ' is no better than fatalism. The intelligible character which determines the series of human actions is itself unalterable. Turning to Kant's Ethics, Hoffding traces the influence upon him of Shaftesbury, Hume and Rousseau, through successive stages of thought. With reference to his final stage Hoffding says : "However sharply Kant distinguished between theory and practice, yet for him both stood in close connexion. A leading thought in the Critique of Pure Reason was that an empirical world, a Nature, could arise for us only on presupposition of objective, universally valid, laws. The moral law he conceived in express analogy with the Law of Nature. Pure Reason is itself no phenomenon, subject to empirical conditions. The Theory of the empirical character is founded on this fact. Kant has, how- ever, failed in his attempt to show how pure reason can be practical. He could, indeed, no more show this than he could explain how things in themselves could stand in relation to the world of phenomena. Kant's rationalism brought him near the point of transition to mysticism, just as mysticism (in the form of ' pietism ') had previously contributed to the development of rationalism. Kant's ethical interest impels him to assign to the moral law a place in the intelligible world, or at least to treat it as the entrance to that world. Thus, as often happens, ethical idealism, by its enthusiasm and exaggeration, defeats its main