without it we might indeed have states of feeling, but never a sensation of something, an intuition of an object, or a perception of a substance. Were we to accept the theory of evolution which traces the human mind back to the inner life of a mollusc, we should even then be able to remain Kantians, in so far as it would be, even then, the category of causality that works in the mollusc, and makes it extend its tentacles towards the crumb of bread which has touched it, and has evoked in it a reflex action, a grasping after the prey. In this lowest form of animal life, therefore, the category of causality, if we may use such a term, would show itself simply as a half-conscious, or, at all events, as a no longer involuntary reaction; in human life we might say that it shows itself clearly in the first glance of recognition that lights up the infant's vacant stare.

This is what Kant means by the category of causality, and no new discoveries, either in the structure of the organs of sense or in the working of the mental faculties, have in any way, so far as I can see, invalidated his conclusions that that category at all events, whatever we may think of the others, is à priori in every sense of the word, is the sine qua non of all thought. It may be, for all we know, ο ψεύδος, but to us it is and must remain an ἀλήθινον ψεῦδος.

on Kant's

Among German philosophers there is none so free from what are called German meta- Schopenhauer physical tendencies as Schopenhauer, yet what does he say of Kant's view of Causality.. causality?

view of

Sensation,' he says, 'is something essentially sub

jective, and its changes are brought to our cognisance in the form of the internal sense only, therefore in time, i. e. in succession. The understanding, through a form belonging to it and to it alone, viz. the form of causality, takes hold of the given sensations, à priori, previous to all experience (for experience is not yet possible), as effects which, as such, must have a cause; and through another form of the internal sense, viz. that of space, which is likewise pre-established in the intellect, it places that cause outside the organs of sense.' And again: As the visible world rises before us with the rising of the sun, the understanding, by its one simple function of referring all effects to a cause, changes with one stroke all dull and unmeaning sensations into intuitions. What is felt by the eye, the ear, the hand, is not intuition, but only the data of intuition. Only by the step which the understanding makes from effect to cause, the world is made, as intuition, extended in space, changing in form, permanent in substance; for it is the understanding which combines Space and Time in the conception of matter, that is, of activity or force.'

Professor Helmholtz, again, who has analysed the Helmholtz on external apparatus of the senses more Causality. minutely than any other philosopher, and who, in England at all events, would not be denied the name of a philosopher, arrives, though starting from a different point, at identically the same result as Schopenhauer.

'It is clear,' he says, 'that starting with the world of our sensations, we could never arrive at the con

1 See Liebmann's remarks on this, Objectiver Anblick, p. 114.

ception of an external world, except by admitting, from the changing of our sensations, the existence of external objects as the causes of change; though it is perfectly true that, after the conception of such objects has once been formed, we are hardly aware how we came to have this conception; because the conclusion is so self-evident that we do not look upon it as the result of a conclusion. We must admit therefore that the law of causality by which from an effect we infer the existence of a cause, is to be recognised as a law of our intellect, preceding all experience. We cannot arrive at any experience of natural objects without having the law of causality acting within us; it is impossible therefore to admit that this law of causality is derived from experience.'

I have just time to add two utterances of another German philosopher and physiologist, Virchow, who in his address to the Naturforscher-Versammlung, in September, 1886, remarks: 'What is seeing without thinking?' nay, who seems to have discerned how indispensable language is to thought, when he adds: 'Only after their perceptions have become fixed by language, are the senses brought to a conscious possession and a real understanding of them.'

Strengthened by such support from very opposite quarters, we may now sum up Kant's argument in favour of the transcendental or à priori character of this and the other categories in this short sentence:

That without which no experience, not even the simplest perception of a stone or a tree, is possible, cannot be the result of repeated perceptions. And we may add as a corollary: All percepts are conceptual.

CHAPTER IV.

LANGUAGE THE BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST.

It was necessary to give at least this general Kant and outline of the position which Kant1 had Darwin. taken up in the history of philosophic thought in order to substantiate the charge which I brought, not so much against Darwin himself, as against certain philosophers who wish to fortify their own position by his powerful name, namely the charge of being unhistorical, that is of being outside the great and continuous stream of the history of philosophy, or having neglected to pay that attention and respect to their predecessors which they deserve. I believe that if Darwin himself had been acquainted with the evolution of philosophic thought as he was with the evolution of nature, he would have seen that there is something in man which he could not have inherited from a monkey, and he would probably, like Helmholtz,

1 For a fuller treatment of Kant's philosophy I must refer to my translation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, published in 1881, in commemoration of the centenary of its first publication, and, more particularly, to Professor Noiré's 'The Critique of Pure Reason, as illustrated by a sketch of the Development of Occidental Philosophy,' contained in the first volume of my translation of Kant's Critique. The same writer has treated the same subject more fully in Die Entwickelung der abendländischen Philosophie bis zur Critik der reinen Vernunft, 1883, the best introduction, I think, to a scholarlike study of Kant.

have modified his opinion of the descent of man, or would at all events have considered it his duty to show how this opinion could be defended against the arguments of thinkers who were his peers in knowledge, in power of reasoning, and in honesty of purpose. Such is my belief in Darwin's intellectual honesty that I should not have been surprised at his giving up his theory of the descent of man from an ape or some kind of animal, if he had been acquainted with Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. I had the privilege of corresponding and conversing with Darwin, after I had delivered my Lectures at the Royal Institution in 1873, and though he was unable to discuss the whole question with me, because, as he said, his knowledge on the subject of languages was only derived from a few personal friends, he said to me in the kindest, half-humorous, half-serious way, You are a dangerous man.' Far be it from me to see in those words more than a good-natured compliment; but they showed at all events that Darwin's mind remained accessible to argument to the very end of his life. What made me bold to urge my views against his was that I felt myself perfectly free from any prejudice, whether on the ground of theology or on the ground of human pride, and that I did not see how the descent of man from some other special animal was a necessary consequence of Darwin's own view of evolution. If, like others, he had admitted but one primordial form, the case would have been different, and he would almost have been forced to admit that man was the child of some other animal, or the result of a special creation. But as in spite of the pressure of his friends, Darwin's scientific conscience would not yield on that point,