Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies;
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove!’
The great defect with which the Essay on Human Understanding is chargeable, is that there really is not a word about the understanding in it, nor any attempt to shew what it is, or whether it is, or is not any thing, distinct from the faculty of simple perception. The operations of thinking, comparing, discerning, reasoning, willing, and the like, which Mr. Locke generally ascribes to it, are the operations of nothing, or of we know not what. All the force of his mind seems to have been so bent on exploding innate ideas, and tracing our thoughts to their external source, that he either forgot, or had not leisure to examine what the internal principle of all thought is. He took for his basis a bad simile, namely, that the mind is like a blank sheet of paper, originally void of all characters, and merely passive to the impressions made upon it: for this, though true as far as relates to innate ideas, that is, to any impressions previously existing in the mind, is not true of the mind itself, or of the manner in which it forms its ideas of the objects actually impressed upon it. The obvious tendency of this simile was to convert the understanding into the mere passive receiver and retainer of physical impressions, a convenient repository for the straggling images of things, or a sort of empty room into which ideas are conveyed from without through the doors of the senses, as you would carry goods into an unfurnished lodging. And hence, again, it has been found necessary, by subsequent writers, to get rid of those different faculties and operations, which Mr. Locke elsewhere supposes to belong to the mind, but which are in truth only compatible with the active powers, and independent nature of the mind itself. It was to remedy this deficiency that Leibnitz proposed to add to the maxim of Locke, that there is nothing in the understanding which was not before in the senses—‘that sublime restriction,’ so much applauded by Madame de Staël—‘EXCEPT THE UNDERSTANDING ITSELF:’ and it is to the establishment and development of this distinction, that the whole of the Kantean philosophy appears to be directed. In what manner, and in what success (judging from the representations we have received of it) remains to be shewn.
The account which Madame de Staël has given of this system is full of the graces of imagination and the charm of sentiment: it passes slightly over many of the difficulties, and softens the abruptness of the reasoning by the harmony of the style. It is therefore the most popular and pleasing account which has been given of the system of the German Philosopher: but after all, it will be better to take his own statement, though somewhat ‘harsh and crabbed’ as the most tangible, authentic, and satisfactory.
‘The following,’ says his translator Willich, ‘are the elements of his Critique of Pure Reason, the first of Kant’s systematical works, and the most remarkable for profound reasoning and the striking illustrations, with which it throughout abounds.
‘We are in possession of certain notions à priori[[8]] which are absolutely independent of all experience, although the objects of experience correspond with them, and which are distinguished by necessity, and strict universality. To these are opposed empirical notions, or such as are only possible à posteriori, that is, through experience. Besides these, we have certain notions, with which no objects of experience ever correspond, which rise above the world of sense, and which we consider as the most sublime, such as God, liberty, immortality. There is always supposed in every empirical notion, or impression of external objects, a pure perception à priori, a form of the sensitive faculty, viz. space and time. This form first renders every actual appearance of objects possible. By the sensitive faculty we are able to form perceptions; by the understanding we form general ideas. By the sensitive faculty we experience impressions, and objects are given to us; by the understanding we bring representations of these objects before us: we think of them. Perceptions and general ideas are the elements of all our knowledge. Without the sensitive faculty, no object could be given (proposed to) us; without the understanding none would be thought of by us. These two powers are really distinct from one another; but neither of the two without the other can produce a notion. In order to obtain a distinct notion of any one thing, we must present to our general ideas objects in perception, and reduce our perceptions to, or connect them with, these general ideas. As the sensitive faculty has its determined forms, so has our understanding likewise forms à priori. These may be properly termed categories; they are pure ideas of the understanding, which relate, à priori, to the objects of perception in general. The objects of experience, therefore, are in no other way possible; they can in no other way be thought of by us, and their multiplied diversity can only be reduced to one act of judgment, or to one act of consciousness, by means of these categories of sense. Hence, the categories have objective reality. They are either categories of
1. Quantity, as unity, number, totality; or,
2. Of Quality, as reality, negation, limitation; or,