judgment is conditioned on the prior existence in the mind of a pure conception of Reason, the ideas above named. But the reality of such ideas this philosophy denies. It thereby, in its fundamental principles, renders the first step in a scientific process impossible.

But let us suppose that this philosophy did admit of abstraction. Simple, classification and generalization would be possible-that is, these qualities, as they exist in combination, might be classed into genera and species, and then qualities, common to all individuals of given classes, might be found. This would be the utmost limit of scientific procedure, according to this philosophy, and this comprehends the limits of the sphere of the Intelligence as presented in the school of Locke. But this is the starting point of real science, properly defined. When substances have been classified and generalized, the Intelligence is then brought into circumstances to evolve their properties and relations in the light of fundamental ideas. This is science—a thing impossible according to the philosophy of Locke.

In the denial of the axioms, also, as the foundation of science, Locke renders science of all kinds impossible. Suppose we did not know the axiom, Things equal to the same thing are equal to one another, how could we affirm that because A and B are equal to C, therefore they are equal to one another? It would be impossible to make such an affirmation. The same holds in respect to every step in all the sciences, pure and mixed. Take away the axioms, and "darkness all, and ever-during night" enshrouds the sun of science. Whenever we meet with scientific Treatises in the school of Locke (and we meet with many), they exist in spite of his philosophy, and not as a consequent of it.

KANT'S DISTINCTION BETWEEN ANALYTICAL AND SYNTHETICAL

JUDGMENTS.

I have reserved for this place, the consideration of the distinction above named, a distinction which constitutes one of the fundamental peculiarities of the philosophy of Kant, and which laid the foundation for the various systems which have risen out of the principles and fragments of his philosophy.

Analytical and Synthetical Judgments defined and distinguished.

The first thing to be done is to define these judgments,

and to distinguish the one from the other. All judgments pertain to the relation between a subject and predicate. This relation is possible only in two ways. Either the predicate is really contained in the subject, and the judgment evolves, or designates it as a quality necessarily embraced in our conception of the subject; or the predicate lies completely out of the subject, although it sustains a certain relation to it. Thus when we affirm that all bodies are extended, the predicate is really embraced in our conception of the subject; since it is impossible to conceive of a body which is not extended. The judgment in this case simply designates the quality named as thus embraced in the conception. All such judgments proceed on the principle of contradiction. No individual for example can deny the proposition, All bodies are extended, without contradicting the essential conception which every one has of body. All such judgments, Kant denominates analytical. To find them, we have only to analyze our conceptions and find the elements essentially embraced in them.

On the other hand, when we say all bodies are heavy, the predicate does not, as in the former case, lie within the subject, as an essential element of our conception of the subject. We cannot conceive of body which is not extended. But we can conceive of body as extended, without including in the conception the idea of weight. That all bodies have weight, we learn from experience alone. Through experience this element is added to our notions of body. All judgments of this character, Kant denominates synthetical.

All pure experience-judgments are synthetical, that is, when, by investigation, we have discovered, as connected with an object, or an essential element of it, some quality unknown before, we then, in thought, add that quality to our former conception of the object.

But we find, on analysis of our judgments, that we have not only empirical, but a priori judgments, which are synthetical. Of this character are all the primary principles of Reason-judgments, such as, Body supposes space succession time; events causes, &c. In all such judgments the predicate is not contained in the subject, as an essential element of any conception of that subject, but lies wholly without it, and the Judgment affirms the relation between them.

Thus far the analysis of Kant is deeply profound and cor

rect.

Much light is thrown thereby upon the procedure of

the Intelligence. Further, when this philosopher affirms that all the sciences "contain synthetical judgments, a priori, as principles," he has asserted a true and very important fact. When philosophers have discovered new and important principles, however, they are very much exposed to become intoxicated by their own discoveries, and, as a consequence, employ such principles in destroying the temple of philosophy, instead of adding them as polished stones to that temple. Whether this philosopher has done this in the instance under consideration, remains to be seen.

Errors of Kant in the Application of the above Principles.

At first thought, it would appear that the principles above elucidated would be very harmless, at least, in their results (and so they will be found to be when legitimately applied), and that they would lead to no disastrous conclusions pertaining to the validity of our knowledge relative to realities within and around us. Yet upon these principles, this philosopher has founded most of his conclusions, in which the validity of our faculties, in reference to all affirmations pertaining to realities, material and mental, finite and infinite, is denied. The conclusions to which he pushes these principles, may be thus stated:

1. Not only are all experience-judgments synthetical, but also all judgments of pure science, such, for example, as mathematical judgments.

2. As in all such judgments the predicate lies wholly out of the subject, such judgments have no claim whatever to objective validity. They are entirely foundationless. In themselves they are without foundation, of course, and as the predicate lies wholly out of the subject, it can have no foundation in that.

3. As such judgments are themselves without foundation, so also must be all sciences founded on them as principles. 4. As all pure sciences rest exclusively upon such judgments, and as all judgments pertaining to such sciences, such for example, as mathematics, are purely synthetical, such sciences, with all judgments pertaining to them, are wholly without any objective validity.

5. As synthetical judgments, a priori, precede as laws of thought, and determine the character of all experiencejudgments, and all conclusions based upon them, these last judgments, like the former, are wholly destitute of all claims

to objective validity. The entire fabric of human knowledge, consequently, falls. Our Intelligence is exclusively a faculty of cognizing as real, what has no existence out of the cognition-faculty itself. The universe, material and mental, God, liberty, and immortality, are the unreal objects of foundationless conceptions. Yet they are objects which we are bound to treat as real, because our cognition-faculty presents them as such, and practical Reason, that function of Reason which teaches what we ought to do, affirms our obligation thus to treat them.

6. On no other supposition than that such is the nature and procedure of the cognition-faculty, can we account for the possibility of synthetical judgments, a priori, of sciences all of whose judgments are synthetical, together with the relations above stated of synthetical judgments to experience. The existence of synthetical judgments reveals the nature of the cognition-faculty, and determines the character of its whole procedure. The basis of the whole system of knowledge is synthetical judgments, having no claim to objective validity. The entire superstructure receives its form and dimensions from such judgments. The building, therefore, cannot be more substantial or real than the foundation on which it rests.

Such is the system of this philosopher, a system moulded from the airy materials, and built upon the airy foundation, under consideration. It now remains to point out the errors, not in the distinctions made by Kant between analytical and synthetical judgments, but in the use he has made of these principles thus distinguished.

1. Kant has failed to mark the real relations existing between the subject and predicate, in synthetical judgments. Had he distinctly marked this relation (the failure to do which being a capital error in philosophy), he would have perceived at once, that no such conclusions can be drawn from those judgments as he supposed. But what is this relation? In a synthetical judgment, the predicate lies out of the subject, to be sure, and is not included in it, as is true in analytical judgments. In the former, however, the predicate sustains to the subject the relation of logical antecedent. Now such a judgment is self-evidently as valid, for things in themselves, as a judgment which affirms of a subject, an element embraced in our conceptions of that subject. The connection between the subject and predicate is no less real,

and no less necessary, in one case than in the other. We find, then, no more reason to question the validity of synthetical judgments for things in themselves, than to question those which are purely analytical.

2. The second and great error of Kant in the use which he has made of the judgments under consideration, is the affirmation, that in all pure sciences, in mathematics for example, all judgments are synthetical, whereas, all such judgments, with the exception of the primitive, are exclusively analytical. This is evident from the fact, that all such judgments proceed on the principle of contradiction. In the mathematics, for example, the relations and properties of quantities and numbers given by definition are evolved in the light of postulates and axioms, in such a manner, that every conclusion must be admitted or the axioms denied. In other words, they all proceed on the principle of contradiction, the very element which Kant himself has fixed on as the characteristic which distinguishes analytical from synthetical judgments. He himself admits, that all derivative judgments in the mathematics do proceed on the principle of contradiction; yet maintains still, that such judgments are synthetical, and not analytical. "Although," he says, a synthetical proposition may at all times be discerned by means of the principle of contradiction, yet only in this way, inasmuch as another synthetic proposition is presupposed from which it can be deduced-but never of itself." argument of Kant appears at least very much like a contradiction. The distinguishing characteristic of analytical propositions, as he himself affirms, is that they may be discerned by means of the principle of contradiction, and while all derivative mathematical judgments (these being the kind of which he is speaking) may, as he acknowledges, be thus discerned, still he says, they are not analytical, but synthetical. It makes no difference whether a proposition is discerned by means of some other or not. If it is discerned by means of the principle of contradiction it is analytical and not synthetical.

The

3. The great error of Kant, then, consists in this, in not in the first place marking distinctly the relation of the subject and predicate in a synthetical judgment; and then in the second place, in extending the sphere of such judgments altogether too far. A careful analysis clearly shows, that none but the primitive, or first truths of Reason, are synthetical.