But it is to-day almost unnecessary even to criticise this Philosophy.
From the first it was foredoomed to failure, and had no prospect of succeeding where Plato—equipped with armour from the same forge—had already failed.
Kantianism like Platonism failed because it still left the sensible unaccounted for. Not only did it fail to tell us whence came these sensations which, however transitory and unreal, constantly saluted our consciousness and largely constituted our Experience; it failed also to show us how they could be brought into relation with the faculty of Knowledge.
Finding its elemental forms in the structure of the organ of Knowledge, it failed to tell us how we ever managed by means of these to get beyond our own subjective states, or how we ever came to think that there was a World outside of the individual consciousness, by the categories of which, according to them, our cognitions of such a World were called into being. For if Reality were unknowable except by and through the categories, then our Knowledge of Reality was the creature of our own mental activity, and we must still remain unable to understand why we should suppose that we had got beyond ourselves.
These defects of Kantianism were early recognised by Schopenhauer, who also appears to have realised that what was wanted was another and a new key to unlock the gateway of Knowledge.
Knowledge was in essence an affirmation or series of affirmations about a real World distinct from the Knower. It was surely now obvious that the warrant for such affirmations and the source of their validity must come from somewhere beyond the cognitive faculty itself. The source upon which men again and again have seemed to fall back is Sensation; but Sensation being transitory and dependent for its existence upon its being felt can really give us no help. Some other, some self-existent thing is wanted, and with considerable insight Schopenhauer suggested that the key was to be found in the Will.
But this theory, though it has lately attracted considerable attention, can hardly be claimed as offering any definite prospect of a solution. Its cardinal defect is that it still fails to show how the sensible arises. It is supposed to be generated out of pure Volition, but no causal nexus, no direct connection of any kind is immediately apparent between the two, and Schopenhauer in developing his theory did nothing to supply the want. The doctrine cannot therefore be regarded as more than a helpful stepping-stone to the true answer.
