Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 4.djvu/322

308 My second comment is, that the description of me as "quite at one with Kant," "barring" the "theory of the prehistoric origin of these intuitions," curiously implies that it is a matter of comparative indifference whether the forms of thought are held to be naturally generated by intercourse between the organism and its environing relations, during the evolution of the lowest into the highest types, or whether such forms are held to be supernaturally given to the human mind, and are independent both of environing relations and of ancestral minds. But now, addressing myself to the essential point, I must meet the statement that I have "misunderstood the exact meaning of what Kant calls the intuitions of Space and Time," by saying that I think Prof. Max Müller has overlooked certain passages which justify my interpretation, and render his interpretation untenable. For Kant says "Space is nothing else than the form of all phenomena of the external sense;" further, he says that "Time is nothing but the form of our internal intuition;" and, to repeat words I have used elsewhere, "He distinctly shuts out the supposition that there are forms of the non-ego to which these forms of the ego correspond," by saying that "Space is not a conception which has been derived from outward experiences." Now, so far from being in harmony with, these statements are in direct contradiction to, the view which I hold, and seem to me absolutely irreconcilable with it. How can it be said that, "barring" a difference represented as trivial, I am "quite at one with Kant," when I contend that these subjective forms of intuition are moulded into correspondence with, and therefore derived from, some objective form or nexus, and therefore dependent upon it; while the Kantian hypothesis is that these subjective forms are not derived from the object, but exist independently in the ego, and are imposed by it on the non-ego? It seems to me that not only do Kant's words, as above given, exclude the view which I hold, but also that Kant could not consistently have held any such view. Rightly recognizing, as he did, these forms of intuition as innate, he was, from his stand-point, obliged to regard them as imposed on the matter of intuition in the act of perception. In the absence of the hypothesis that intelligence has been evolved, it was not possible for him to regard these subjective forms as having been derived from objective forms.

A disciple of Locke might, I think, say that the Evolution-view of our consciousness of Space and Time is essentially Lockian, with more truth than Prof. Max Müller can represent it as essentially Kantian. The Evolution-view is completely experiential. It differs from the original view of the experientialists by containing a great extension of it. With the relatively-small effects of individual experiences, it joins the relatively-vast effects of the experiences of antecedent individuals. But the view of Kant is avowedly and absolutely unexperiential. Surely this makes the predominance of kinship manifest.

In Prof. Max Müller's replies to my criticisms on Kant I cannot