Page:Philosophical Review Volume 3.djvu/219

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No. 2.]
REVIEWS OF BOOKS
203

approximating the ideal above described can be written of the Kantian system, or indeed of modern philosophy in general, the influence of Kant—of whose greatness many have indeed had some idea, but few up to this time understood—must be followed up and investigated in its relation to the most external and divergent members of the separate sciences. All the local and constitutional disturbances must be investigated which the sudden entrance of the Kantian bacteria produced in the organism of philosophy, and, through sympathy with it, in that of the other sciences. For these reasons, leaving quite out of account the lack of literary means of assistance which has hitherto existed, a Kant bibliography such as that now being published by this journal was an absolute necessity. And for the same reason those passages of Vaihinger's Commentary are completely justified which take the most minute account of historical investigations for the sake of the Kant literature. That is, with the intention of explaining the history of the problems, and of the most important disputed points of exegesis, and of the terminology. In these particulars the Commentary relieves the historical investigator—and also indirectly the speculative philosopher and epistemologist—of a troublesome but necessary preliminary task. The longer discussions of the Commentary, and, in particular, nearly all of the digressions, are of this character. In this connection, the fact that the continuity between the Kant scholarship of this century and that of the preceding one is reëstablished by such investigations is of the utmost importance. Many questions relating to Kant are, without doubt, of recent date, as, e.g., all those dealing with the historical origin and development of his system, and the more psychological inquiries which treat of his philosophical individuality and attempt to explain various contradictions in his writings. But the most material problems have been acutely and very exhaustively explained in the previous century. The greater part of this literature, some of which (especially the polemical) is of great importance, was, however, until recently almost entirely forgotten and lost. The evil results of such ignorance are apparent: what had already been once or oftener happily expressed appeared again as something original in a worse form. Difficulties which had long before been removed and decided were once more raised as new and important discoveries. The most remarkable example of this is furnished by the controversy between Fischer and Trendelenburg. Vaihinger shows and it cannot have been a secret to any one acquainted with Kant literature—that the objec-