I.
PHILOSOPHY AS CRITICISM OF CATEGORIES.
A hundred years have passed since Kant, in a note to the
Preface of the first ‘Critique,’ declared his age to be
pre-eminently the age of an all-embracing criticism, and
proceeded therewith to sketch the outlines of what he called
the critical philosophy. The latter has grown to be a great
fact even in that dim general consciousness in which
humanity keeps record of the deeds of its past. But a
hundred years have apparently not been long enough for
commentators and critics to make clear to a perplexed
public the exact import of what Kant came to teach. And
if Kant had survived to dip into the literature of the
centennial and see the different doctrines with which he is
credited, one can fancy the indignant disclaimers that would
have filled the literary journals. The agreement is general
that Kant’s contribution to philosophy forms a bridge
between one period of thought and another; but opinion is
sadly divided as to the true philosophic succession. Hence
it is probably better, in any treatment which aims at
philosophical persuasion, to regard Kant not so much with
reference to the systems of which his own has been the
germ as with reference to the whole period which he closed.
If we get in this way to see what notions it was that he
destroyed, then we may possibly reach a certain unanimity
about the principles and outlines of the new philosophy.
When we know on what ground we stand, and what things
are definitely left behind, we are in a position to work for
the needs of our own time, taking help where it is to be
found, but without entangling ourselves in the details of any
particular post-Kantian development.
An unexceptionable clue to the way in which Kant was accustomed to regard his own philosophic work is furnished by the use he makes of the term criticism. Criticism, as
