KANT'S OPINION OF REALITY AND NEGATION.
95. Kant numbers among his categories reality and negation, or existence and non-existence, and, conformablyto his principles, defines them thus: "Reality is a pure conception of the understanding; it is what corresponds, in general, to any sensation whatever, consequently that whose conception denotes a being in itself, in time. Negation is that whose conception represents a not-being in time. The opposition of these two things consists in the difference of the same time, as full or void. Since then, time consists solely in the form of the intuition, and consequently in the form of the objects as phenomena, it follows that that which in them corresponds to the sensation, is the transcendental matter of all objects, as things in themselves, essential reality. Every sensation has a degree or intensity, by which it may fill more or less the same time, that is, the inward sense relatively to the representation of an object, until it be reduced to nothing = 0 = negation."
There is in this passage a fundamental error which ruins the whole basis of all intelligence: there is also much confusion in his application of the idea of time.
96. According to Kant, reality alone refers to sensations; therefore the idea of being will be the idea of the phenomena of sensibility in general; this idea will mean nothing, if applied to the non-sensible; the very principle of contradiction will necessarily be limited to the sphere of sensibility; and we neither shall know, or be able to know any thing without the sensible order. Such are the consequences of this doctrine; let us now examine the solidity of the principle from which they flow.
97. Were the idea of reality only the idea of the sensible in general, we could never apply it to non-sensible things, which, however, experience teaches we can do. We speak incessantly of the possibility and even of the existence of non-sensible beings, and we even distinguish the phenomena of our mind into those belonging to sensibility,and those which correspond to the purely intellectual order. The idea of being, therefore, for us, denotes a general conception non-circumscribed by the sensible order.
98. Kant will answer that the applications we make of this idea, extending it beyond the sphere of sensibility, are vain illusions expressed in unmeaning words. To this we reply.
I. There is now no question of ascertaining whether the applications of the idea of being or reality beyond the sensible order be founded or unfounded; there is question only of ascertaining what it is that this idea represents to us, whether the object represented be illusory or not. Kant, when defining reality, regards it as one of his categories, and consequently, as one of the pure conceptions of the understanding. To make his definition good, he ought to employ this conception in its greatest possible extent: but as he has demonstrated that conception, in itself, is not limited to the sphere of sensibility, it must follow that his definition is inadmissible. Had he said that the applications of the conception beyond the sensible order were unfounded, he would indeed have erred, but would not have destroyed conception itself; yet he equivocates not only in the uses of conception, but also in its nature, which he can only ruin, if he limit it to the sphere of sensibility.
II. The principle of contradiction is founded in the idea of being, and extends as well to the non-sensible as to the sensible. It would follow, were we to admit Kant's doctrine, that the principle of contradiction, "It is impossible for a thing to be and not to be at the same time," would be equivalent to this proposition; "It is impossible for a phenomenon of sensibility to appear and not to appear at the same time." Evidently neither philosophy nor common sense ever gave such a meaning to the principle of contradiction. When the impossibility of a thing's being and notbeing at the same time is affirmed, this is asserted in general, and abstraction is absolutely made of the things pertaining or not pertaining to the sensible order. Were it not thus, we should be obliged to say that non-sensible beings are absolutely impossible, which even Kant does not venture to maintain, or, supposing them to exist, to doubt whether the principle of contradiction is applicable to them. Who sees not the absurdity of such a doubt, and that, if it be admitted for a single instant, all intelligence is destroyed? If we limit the generality of the principle of contradiction, the impossibility is no longer absolute: and supposing it to fail in certain cases, who shall assure us that it does not in all?
III. Kant himself admits the distinction between the phenomena of sensibility and purely intellectual conceptions: with him, therefore, reality comprises something more than the sensible. Purely intellectual conceptions are a reality, are something at least as subjective phenomena of our mind, and yet are not sensible, as Kant himself confesses; he therefore falls into a contradiction, when he limits the idea of reality to the purely sensible.
99. Kant conceives reality and negation only as filling, or leaving void, time, which, in his opinion, is the primitive form of our intuitions, and a kind of back-ground upon which the mind sees all objects, even its own operations. According to this doctrine, the ideas of time precede those of reality and negation, since only in relation to it are the two latter conceivable. And now we see the singularity of a form, or whatever else it be called, to which the ideas of reality and negation are made to refer when nothing is conceivable without the idea of reality. Kant, scrupulous as he is in the analysis of the elements of our mind, and contemptuous as he is towards all metaphysicians who preceded him, ought to have explained to us the nature of thisform in which we see reality, and which, nevertheless, is not contained in the idea of reality. If it is something, it will be a reality; and if it is not something, it will be a pure nothing; and consequently, it cannot be a form which can, by filling and becoming void, present to our mind the ideas of reality or negation. It would be easy to show, by an abundance of reason, the German philosopher's equivocation, when he so inexactly determines the relations between time and the idea of being; but as we propose to explain at length the idea of time, we will pass over here what belongs to another part of this work.