Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/436

* KAN-SU. 394 KANT. raised. From Lan-chow-fu westward level ground begins, and tlie narrow belt which forina the depart iiiL'nts uf Kau-chyw-fu and Suchow-fu is very fertile and produces much grain. In the 18 miles from Su-chow to the fortified gate of the Great Wall, called Kia-yii Kwan (ten miles beyond which the wall tomes to an end), agriculture becomes less general. Tobacco is the finest product of tlie province, which, how- ever, is rich in minerals, and rivals Shan-si in both the richness and the extent of its coal-lields. It t-akes from the eastern provinces cotton and wheat, and sends back tobacco (its own product), medicines, furs, skins, wool, felt, cattle, sheep, and mules, mostly the product of Koko-nor and the ^longol territoiy. The name is made up of the first syllables of the names Kan-chow and Su-chow, already mentioned. With Shen-si it forms the Governor-Generalship of •Shen-Kan, the Governor-General residing in Lan-chow-fu, the capital. KANT, kant, Immanlel (1724-1804). One of the greatest and most inllucntial German meta- plnsicians. He was the son of a saddler, of fcicotch descent, and was born at Kiinigsberg, April 22, 1724. He studied philosophy, mathe- matics, physics, theology', and other subjects, at the university of his native town, and, after spending nine years as a private tutor in several families, took his degiee at KOnigsberg in 1755, and began to deliver lectures as privat- doccnt, on logic, metaphysics, phj'sics, politics, and mathematics; later he added courses on phj'si- cal geography, anthropolog;*', natural theology, and pedagog;*-, and one year he lectured on miner- alogy'. In 1702 he was offered the chair of poetry at KOnigsberg, but. though in some need of the salary, he wisely declined because he was not fitted for the place. The next year he obtained a position of assistant librarian on a salary of G2 thalers; and, though he had now become well known and greatly esteemed for his scholarship, he did not obtain a professorship until 1770, when he was appointed to the chair of logic and metaphysics, as an inducement to keep him in Kiinigsberg, now that he had received calls to Erlangen and Jena. In 1778 he had a call to Halle, which he declined, to remain at KJinigsberg till his death, February 12, 1804. Kant's private life was uneventful. He was a bachelor and never traveled. He was a man of unimpeachable vera- city and honor, austere in his principles of moral- ity, though kindly and courteous in manner, a bold and fearless advocate of political liberty, and a firm believer in human progress. He sym- pathized with the American Colonies in their struggle against England, and with the French people in their revolt against monarchical abuses. As a lecturer he was popular. Herder says that his lectures were characterized by deep thought, wit. and humor. They were said to have been much more dogmatic in tone than his writings, and to have had moral and religious edification in mind as well as the imparting of information. In philosophy he developed slowly. His views did not seem to take anything like final form till he wrote his greatest work. Krilil- der reincn Ter- ixnnft, which was first published in 1781. By this time he had efTected in philosophy what ho called a Copernican revolution. "Our suggestion," he writes, "is similar to that of Copernicus in astron- omy, who, finding it impossible to explain the movements of the heavenly bodies on the supposi- tion that they turned round the spectator, tried whether he might not succeed better by supposing the spectator lo rcvulve and the stars to remain at rest. Let us make a similar experiment in metaphysics with perception. If it were really necessary for our perception to conform to the nature of objects, 1 do not see how we could know anything of it a priori; but if the sensible object must conform to the constitution of our faculty of perception, I see no dillicully in the matter. I'erccption, however, can become knowl- edge only if it is related in some way to the object which it determines. Now here again 1 may sup- pose, either that the conceptions through which I effect that determination conform to objects, or that objects, in other words the exi)erience in which alone objects are known, conform to con- ceptions. In the former case I fall into the same perplexity as before, and fail to explain how such conceptions can be known a priori. In the latter case the outlook is more hopeful. For experience is itself a mode of knowledge which implies in- telligence, and intelligence has a rule of its own, which must be an a priori condition of all knowledge of objects presented to it. To this rule, as expressed in a priori conceptions, all objects of experience must necessarily conform, and with it they must agree." (Preface, tr. by Watson.) This passage shows that Kant started with the assumption that there is a priori syn- thetic knowledge, i.e. as he defined it, knowledge of universal and necessary truths. (8ee Ax.lytic Judgment, and A Priori.) His mathematical training had taught him to regard the truths of mathematics as universal and necessary : while Hume had convinced him that any merely dog- matic assumption of universality and necessity was unwarranted. His problem now was how to escape dogmatism and yet justify the making of universal synthetic propositions, such as that two and two make four. This problem he solved to his satisfaction by making the world of experi- ence in part a product of the intelligence that passes judgments. Space and time are 'forms of perception,' that is, the frameworks within one of which, at least, objects must be arranged before they can be perceived. They are "conditions of the possibility of phenomena.' This they could not be unless they were imposed upon phenomena by the percipient agent. But not only must objects be perceived, in order to 1)0 known : they must be conceived also. This act of conception is warranted only if objects, before being presented in experience, are worked into order by the same intelligence that in judgment unconditionally predicates this order of them. The forms of per- ception are space and time; the order produced by intellectual spontaneity is constituted by four great i)rin(iplcs of synthesis — quantity, quality, relation, and modality — and each of these appears in threefold form. Hence we have twelve 'cate- gories' or 'pure conceptions of the understand- ing,' viz.: (1) Unity, (2) plurality, and (3) to- tality; (4) reality, (5) negation, and (fi) limita- tion; (7) inherence and subsistence: (8) causality and dependence: and (9) community. (10) possi- bility and impossibility, (11) existence and non- existence, and (12) necessity and contingency. These categories are discovered by examination of the 'functions of unity in judgment.' i.e. by examination of the different ways in which the mind, in judsring. predicates unity or order of the world of experience. Now the fundamental con-