Principles of western civilisation

Xx TOWARDS THE FUTURE 391

Germany with the theories of Kant, and which has influenced so deeply andin so many directions the course of modern intellectual development, the result as it begins to stand out before the mind is very striking.

So far as it is possible to compress into a few words the problem which we see Kant discussing in the Cretzgue of Pure Reason,’ to which we see him later bidding farewell in the Prolegomena to any Future Metaphystc,? and around which for over a century so much controversy has centred, it might be put as follows :—Kant asserted, from an analysis of the human mind, that there was to be distinguished in it a quality or a conviction relating to ends to be described as transcendental, and as such lying beyond the limit of the understanding ; and yet a quality or conviction which was also to be described, not only as true, but as vitally associated with the whole theory of human conduct in regard to human interests in the world around us.

If we take now, on the other hand, the leading tenet of the opposing empirical school of thought which has come down through Hume, and the influence of which has lasted down to the present day, and endeavour to compress it into similarly brief terms, it would amount practically to this. So far from giving any countenance to Kant’s conception, it asserted with emphasis that the content of the human mind proceeded simply from sensations related to experience ;* or—to put the concep-

' The Critique of Pure Reason, by lnmanuel Kant, translated by F. Max Miller, vol. ii. ; see in particular pp. 403-713.

° The Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysic, translated by J. P. Mahatffy and J. H. Bernard.

° Cf. A Treatise on Human Nature, by David Hume, original edition, edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge, v. i. and iii. ; and iii.