be. The two being ontologically inseparable, we ought, in case we have intuition of things as they exist in reality, to perceive them, and to conceive them, always as inseparably united, precisely as we do.

But Hume, assuming the two categories, the category of cause and that of effect, to be disjoined objectively, was extremely puzzled to ascertain how it happens that they are always strictly united in the conception, that is, subjectively. He finally resolved the problem by recourse to habit or association, contracted from having frequently observed that certain things uniformly accompany certain other things, in the order of antecedence and consequence. Kant detects and shows the inadequacy of this solution, and attempts a new one; namely, that the conception of the category of cause is purely subjective, lying a priori in the understanding, and is by it added in the synthetic judgment to the category of effect. But this removes no real difficulty; for the real difficulty was not so much how this synthesis is formed, as what is its validity when formed. On Kant's hypothesis, it has no validity, because there is nothing in reality to correspond to it; it is a conception without an object, and therefore void. Hence, as to the reality of science, it leaves us precisely where we were left by Hume. It refutes Hume's solution of the problem, but it confirms Hume's skepticism.

Assuming Kant's hypothesis, it does not advance our science at all. For to say, that in synthetic judgments we add the category of cause, is only saying, in other words, that in every cognition we always couple the conception of cause with that of effect, which was the fact to be explained. All admit the fact. The question is, The reason of the fact, and its value? The truth is, the fact itself is inexplicable from the purely psychological point of view, and nothing better proves it than the abortive attempts of Hume and Kant, both men of the highest order of metaphysical genius, and either of whom would have explained it, had it been explicable by the method adopted. We have said more than once, that science, or knowing, is inexplicable

psychologically. Every psychologist inevitably, if he push his principles to their last conclusions, ends in skepticism. This lies in the nature of things, because science is not a purely psychological fact. There is no seeing where nothing is seen, no knowing where nothing is known. To explain the fact of science, what Kant calls a synthetic judgment a priori, we must have a doctrine of life; for we see things so and so, because they exist so and so a parte rei. Thus the two categories are connected in the thought, because they are so connected ontologically, and because we see things, so far as we see them at all, as they really exist.

A true doctrine of life, or ontology, will show us that the noumenon is in the phenomenon, the cause in the effect, the general in the particular, the necessary in the contingent; and therefore we see or detect, more or less obscurely, no doubt, the first category in the second. God is the Creator, the Cause, of the world; but is present with it, for he is declared to be present with all his works, for it is only in him that they are, and are sustained. And hence it is that we may find him in his works, as says St. Paul, "Invisibilia Dei, per ea quæ facta sunt, intellecta, conspiciuntur; sempiterna quoque ejus virtus, et divinitas."— Rom. i. 20. Were it not so, the argument a posteriori could in no case be valid, and the cause would in no sense be revealed by the effect. Nay, the cause would never be worth seeking for, for it would be to us nothing but an empty name.

We must, however, in asserting that each category is an object of experience, that is to say, objectively and empirically derived, beware of the error of the mystics and exclusive spiritualists, who will have it that we can attain to the intelligible world immediately, that we can rise to cognition of cause without the medium of the effect. Humanity, in relation to individuals, belongs to the first of the two categories to which we have reduced the subdivisions of Kant. But humanity, abstracted from individual men and women, who participate of it and reveal it, is incognizable, is no object

of knowledge. God is cognoscible, but, in the present life, only as revealed in his works, that is, his works of creation, providence, and grace. The beatified will see God face to face as he is, as says St. Paul, "Videmus nunc per speculum in ænigmate; tunc autem facie ad faciem"; for "we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like to him, because we shall see him as he is," as says St. John. But, at present, it is only darkly we see him, only in part that we know him, through the medium of the effect; not till we are glorified, shall we be able to have the beatific vision of cause in itself, and then only by a supernatural light.

The doctrine of the reality of ideas, of the true, the beautiful, and the good, is a true doctrine; and that we have real experience of ideas, objectively, as much so as of sensible objects, is, we hold, an unquestionable fact; but it is only in the category of the phenomenon, of the effect, the particular, the contingent, that we cognize them. But as the ideal is always in the actual, so in the intuition of the actual we have intuition of the ideal. Hence it is, that, in the cognition of effect, I have always the conception of cause. Consequently, the element which Kant assumes to lie out of the fact of experience, and to be added a priori in the synthesis, does not lie out of the fact of experience, and is, in fact, not a synthetic judgment, but an analytic judgment, or, if synthetic, it is synthetic a posteriori. Consequently, there are no synthetic judgments a priori; and Kant's problem, How are synthetic judgments a priori formed? ceases to be a problem. The question he raises, he raises in consequence of a misapprehension; and he never could have asked it, if he had had a doctrine of life, for it has no foundation in ontology.

We have said, that, admitting Kant's doctrine, no progress is made in explaining the fact of science. What, after all, is disclosed by his labors, that gives us either a more or a less solid ground of certainty? We know by the representation of objects plus what we ourselves add to it. We add the forms of the intuition,

the forms of the conception, and the synthetic judgment a priori, by which we unite the intuition and conception into a cognition, and this cognition to I am, so that it is not only cognition, but my cognition. What says all this beyond simply saying, I know? And when it is said, I am capable, by means of sensibility and understanding, of intuitions and conceptions a priori and transcendental, and, by means of these, of cognition a posteriori, what is said beyond the simple fact, that I am intelligent? Who says, I know, says, to say the least, all that Kant has said; and who says, I am intelligent, says all that can be said in explanation of the fact of intelligence from the point of view of psychology. No analysis can reduce I know to a lower denomination, or resolve it into separate elements. They, who explain or undertake to explain vision by talking of the rays of light falling on the retina and painting thereon the image or picture of the object, add nothing to our knowledge of the visual faculty itself, and aid us not at all in solving the real mystery of vision. They merely explain, granting them all they allege,-much of which we hold to be very questionable, some of the external conditions under which the fact of vision usually takes place. No anatomizing of the eye brings us in the least nearer to the visual force. It is just as difficult to explain how the mind sees the image reflected on the retina, as it would be to explain how it could see the object itself without the intervention of the image. The insertion of the species, or the representation, between the object and the understanding explains nothing. How is the representation itself cognized? If the intuition be not cognition, how will you make it cognition? In all our investigations we assume that we know. This, to say the least, is an inevitable necessity. The only questions for us, then, are, What do we know? and, How can we know more than we do?

If we would go further, and ask, How do we know? or, Why do we know under this or that form? we must go to ontology, to things themselves. I see things

because they are; and under this or that form, because they so exist objectively in re. If I perceive the particular only in the general, and the general only in the particular, it is because, though distinct, they are inseparable, in the constitution of things. Rise to the comprehension of the Platonic ontology, especially to Christian theology, and the whole matter becomes plain enough. Below that elevation it is necessarily inexplicable.

More we intended to add, more we shall add, when we come to treat of the doctrines of life, or philosophy properly so called; but we have reached our limits, and are tired of the task of laboring to refute an author who is always able, always profound, but always wrong in his fundamental principles. We have labored in review of Kant till we are tired of him, and we have no doubt that our readers will readily allow us to dismiss him. We have aimed to comprehend his doctrine, aimed to set it forth correctly, and to meet it fairly. If we have done him any injustice, it has been unintentional. We took up his work with a profound reverence for it. We had been accustomed, by those whose opinions we most valued, to look upon Kant as the great metaphysician of modern times; we expected much; we have found nothing. There may be depths in the Critic we have not sounded, diamonds that we have not discovered; but we have sounded to the length of our line, and we have searched diligently for the gems which might be concealed at the bottom; but, alas! we have found nothing but bald atheism, and cold and heartless skepticism, erected into a system bearing all the imposing forms of science. We have labored to refute its fundamental principles, because we believe them adopted by large numbers who have never read Kant himself, and because we would do what we can to atone for our own former philosophical and theological errors, and aid as we can in recalling the age to a religious philosophy, in consonance with the profound mysteries of the Christian faith. We hope we have not labored in vain.

VOL. I. NO. IV.

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