Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/240

 For Force to fill Space, there must be Substance, Matter. A mere force can never fill. Matter must be there for it to fill."—Bravo! My cobbler would use just such arguments as these. —When I see specimina eruditionis of this sort, I begin to have my misgivings whether I did not do the man injustice by naming him among those who endeavour to undermine Kant; but in this, to be sure, I had in view his assertions that "Space is but the relation, the juxtaposition of things," and that "Space is a relation in which things stand, a juxtaposition of things. This juxtaposition ceases to be a conception as soon as the conception of Matter ceases." For he might possibly have penned these sentences in sheer innocence, since he may have known no more of the "Transcendental Aesthetic" than of the "Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science;" though to be sure, this would be rather extraordinary for a professor of philosophy. Now-a-days however we must not be surprised at anything. For all knowledge of Critical Philosophy has died out, in spite of its being the latest true philosophy that has appeared, and a doctrine withal, that has made a revolution and epoch in human knowledge and thought. Now therefore, since it has overthrown all previous systems, and since the knowledge of it has died out, philosophising no longer proceeds on the basis of any of the doctrines propounded by the great minds of the past, but becomes a mere random untutored process, having an ordinary education and the catechism for its foundation. Now that I have startled them however, our professors may perhaps take to studying Kant's works again. Still Lichtenberg says: