Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/377

Rh thought. His contribution to our present subject of inquiry consisted of two parts: (a) the distinction between Verstand and Vernunft, (b) the conclusions gained in the last division of his masterpiece, the 'Critique of Pure Reason.' The former was destined to exercise decisive effect on the relation between science and philosophy; the latter, as I understand the 'Dialectic' met much the same fate as Hume's destructive analysis—it was misinterpreted or overlooked. We may therefore take it first, and very briefly. In the third part of the 'Critique of Pure Reason,' entitled 'Dialectic,' because it deals with subjects capable of dialectical treatment, Kant shows that the metaphysic of his predecessors must be adjudged a complete failure. Mathematics and physics exist, for they have objects; but metaphysics has no existence, its objects are unthinkable, humanly speaking. Take the soul (or self) as a self-contained thing, occupying a place among the other self-contained elements of human life; interpret the universe as a self-contained object, one among other objects of experience; conceive God as a self-contained 'agent acting constantly according to certain laws,' and residing far out in the depths of space; in a word, let your fundamental conceptions be those of the Descartes-Newton type; then, when you come to analyze them, you will find of a surety that no such soul or universe or God can possibly enter into human experience. This Kant proves, and so cuts the throat of the metaphysic which ruled science and philosophy from the Reformation till his day. On the whole, philosophers have not yet fathomed his meaning, while scientific men have been quick to seize his point, that metaphysic does not exist, forgetting completely that his work was preliminary to the necessary question: What, then, are soul, the universe and God? To declare, with a certain quasi-scientific school, that these are mere ideas, helps us not a whit. For the declaration, as they do not see, destroys the validity of science also. Thus, on a broad view, we have still to reckon with this aspect of Kant's thought.

The distinction between Verstand (understanding) and Vernunft (reason)—the English words fail to translate, unfortunately—stands in very different case, having been productive of momentous consequences. Kant's early scientific researches led him to see that a dynamical account of the material universe ought to be substituted for the static conception of Newton. Indeed, he hit upon the idea of preorganic evolution; but, as thermodynamics lay in the future, experimental evidence lacked, and he was switched on to another line by Hume. According to Hume, knowledge is phenomenal, and phenomenal only. It consists of what apppearsappears [sic] to be; can have no commerce with what is. By analysis, the most complex ideas can be proved to possess a phenomenal basis. The faculty of analysis, which deals thus with phenomena, Kant called Verstand. But he insisted that Hume's