INABILITY OF KANT'S DOCTRINE TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF THE POSSIBILITY OF EXPERIENCE.
118. I think that Kant'sTranscendental Æsthetics, or theory of sensibility, is not sufficiently transcendental. It is too much confined to the empirical part, and does not rise to the height which we should expect from the title. The problem of the possibility of experience which Kant proposed to solve, either is not at all touched by his doctrine, or else it is solved in a strictly idealist sense. It leaves the problem untouched, if we consider only what relates to observation; for he only repeats what we already knew in establishing the fact of theexteriorityof things; it solves the problem in a strictly idealist sense, inasmuch as these things are only considered as phenomena or appearances.
119. A purely subjective space either does not explain the problems of the external world, or it denies them in denying all reality. What progress has philosophy made by affirming that space is a purely subjective condition? Before Kant, did we, perchance, not know that we had perception of external phenomena? The difficulty was not in the existence of this perception attested by consciousness; but in its value to prove the existence of an external world, in relation with it. The difficulty was in the objective, not the subjective part of the perception.
120. To say that the perception is nothing more than a condition of the subject, is to cut the knot instead of untying it. It does not explain the manner of the possibility of experience, but denies this possibility.
What is experience if there is only the subject? There will be thephenomenonorappearanceof objectiveness, but nature is then only a mere appearance, and there is nothing in reality which corresponds to our experimental perceptions. We then have experience reduced to the perception of appearances; and as even this purely phenomenal experience is only possible by virtue of a purely subjective condition, the intuition of space; all experience remains purely subjective, and we find ourselves holding the system of Fichte, admitting themeas the primitive fact, the development of which constitutes the universe. Thus the system of Fichte follows from Kant's doctrine; the former has only carried out the principles of his master.
121. In order to make the connection between the two doctrines still clearer, we shall make some further reflections on Kant's system. If space is something purely subjective, a condition of the sensibility and of the possibility of experience, it follows that the mind instead of receiving any thing from the object, creates whatever is in the object, or rather, whatever we consider as in it. Things in themselves are not extended; extension is only a form with which the mind clothes them. In the same manner, they are not colored, sonorous, tasteful, or odorous, except inasmuch as we transfer to them that which is in ourselves alone. Every thing being reduced to mere appearances, there is in the external world not even the principle of causality of subjective extension; the mind gives it to objects, does not receive it from them. These objects are pure phenomena; and, consequently, the soul only sees what it contains in itself, it knows no other world than that which is its own creation. Thus, we see the real world spring from theme; or, rather, the real world is only the ideal creation of the mind. On this supposition, the laws of nature are only the laws of our own mind, and insteadof seeking for the types of our ideas in nature, we ought to regard our ideas as the generative principle of all that exists, or seems to exist; and the laws of the universe are merely the subjective condition of themeapplied to phenomena.
122. Some of the disciples of Kant show no fear of his idealist tendencies; in fact they accept them without any hesitation, as may be seen by the comparisons which they use in explaining his doctrine. If a seal be applied to a piece of soft wax, it will leave its impression on the wax; if we suppose the seal to be capable of perception, it would see its mark on the wax, and attribute to the object what it had itself given it. If a vase full of water were capable of perception, it would attribute to the water the form, which in reality is only the form of the vase itself, and is communicated from it to the water. In a similar manner the mind constructs the external world, giving to it its impression and form, and then believing it has received from the external world what it has itself communicated to it.
123. Still we must confess that Kant, in the second edition of hisCritic of Pure Reason, rejects these conclusions, and expressly combats idealism. There is no necessity of examining how far the second edition contradicts the first: it is sufficient for me to inform the reader that this contradiction exists, and that in the first edition there are expressions which so plainly lead to idealism, that it is impossible not to be surprised on finding the same author in the second edition of his work strongly opposing the idealist system. I have pointed out the consequences of the doctrine; if the author understood it in a different sense from that which his words expressed, this is merely a personal, not a philosophical question.(31)