The above reference of Kant to "other thinking beings" is not, as has been so generally supposed, a mere critical suggestion, but is made in thorough earnest. The existence and nature of the "Spirit World" was from the beginning an interesting problem with Kant. In the Natural History of the Heavens, R. VI., 179, and especially 206, "On the Inhabitants of the Stars," Kant sets forth his theories about the "various classes of intelligent beings," the "kinds of thinking natures," and
"In the spiritual world the progressions of life appear to be in time; but since state there determines time, time is only an appearance. Time in the spiritual world is nothing but the quality of state. Times ate not there constant as in the natural world, but change according to the state of life, having relation especially to changes of wisdom. Time there is one with thought from affection. (70–74.)
"But time and space as fixed or measured by material standards are proper to nature, and as such belong only to a limited world, and cannot be applied to infinite being. Time and space belong to nature, just as finiteness or limitation belong to a created world. For nothing which is proper to nature can be predicated of the Divine, and space and time are proper to nature. Space in nature is measurable, and so is lime. Nature derives this measurement from the apparent revolution and annual motion of the sun of this world. But in the spiritual world it is different. (73.)
"Times which are proper to nature in its world are in the spiritual world pure states which appear progressive, because angels and spirits are finite; from which it may be seen that in God they are not progressive, because He is Infinite, and infinite things in Him are One; and hence it follows that the Divine in all lime is apart from time. (75.)
Schopenhauer in his essay, "Versuch ueber Geisterseher and was damit zusammenhaengt," in the volume entitled "Parerga and Paralipomena," Vol. I., pp. 241, 328, calls attention to an existing order of things:—
"Entirely distinct from that of nature where the purely formed
