means of the more ample and authoritative essays of Sir William Hamilton. Opinion in England, in philosophy and theology, even in politics and physics, is now greatly, though indirectly, modified by Kant, the influence of whose doctrines is apparent in the most advanced ideas on the nature of science and the limits of theological controversy, as well as in the whole method and structure of the greatest British philosophical works of the nineteenth century—those of Hamilton. This is not the place for a full exposition of the Critical Philosophy, and only one or two of its salient features can be even referred to. Its aim was to relieve human nature and science from the pressure of philosophical scepticism, by means of a critical or well-reasoned modification of philosophical dogmatism—to save a relative and limited knowledge for man, by a surrender of the claim to a metaphysical knowledge of a transcendent world beyond experience. Like Reid—whose two great works on the intellectual and on the active powers were published in the same decade of last century as the speculative and practical criticism of Kant—he was a professed leader in the conservative reaction against the scepticism of Hume. But the many subtle and speculative questions treated of in Kant's theory of Science and of Speculative Reason, which virtually underlie Reid's theory of Common Sense, are hardly recognized at all by the Scottish philosopher, nor can it be said that they were blended with our insular philosophy, until it had experienced the influence of Hamilton. The Common Sense of Reid is more akin to the practical than to the speculative reason of Kant. While Reid describes our powers of intellect—sufficient for all human purposes, Kant rather analyzes our intellectual impotence—which unfits us for any mental enterprise in which we are required to comprehend the irrelative and the infinite. The existence of ultimate and necessary propositions, involved in our knowledge as such, is a prominent doctrine both in the early Scottish and the Kantian philosophy, but they are developed after a more subtile scientific method in the sensible forms and the twelve categories of the understanding of Kant, than in the homelier language of Reid and his immediate disciples. Reid may be said to waive a detailed and purely speculative answer to the question, What are the nature and limits of that knowledge of reality which is implied in the ultimate propositions? The answer is the theme of the last part of Kant's critical analysis of speculative reason, where he lays bare the antinomies or paralogisms of reason, when it endeavours to carry speculation beyond the boundaries assigned it by its very nature in a finite intelligence. In his demonstration of our absolute speculative inability to comprehend Man, the World, or God, and in his development of the tissue of contradictions in which we land ourselves when we make the attempt, Kant seems at first to be carrying forward, with greater power than the Scottish sceptic himself, the iconoclastic task of David Hume. It is not till we turn with him from Truth to Duty, that the insight we have obtained of man's intellectual or scientific weakness is found to contribute to his moral strength and dignity; and that having been taught through reflection that we cannot absolutely comprehend God and the universe, we learn with reverence to submit to the awful law which claims the absolute regulation of our actions. Kant demonstrates the finitude of reason in man, but not its essential fallibility; and if, like Hamilton, he has left a deeper impression of the boundaries of knowledge than of what we can know within these boundaries, the philosophical student will recollect that truth advances in the human mind, as it were, by sideway moves. We must exaggerate the place of each of its parts in turn, in order that on the whole it may gain fresh ground.
Kant's life as an author did not close with his "Critiques." Physics, history, politics, and anthropology were discussed in various articles and treatises, in the interval between 1790 and his death in 1804. But the most remarkable works of this closing period are those which relate to natural theology, and the theory of religion. In 1792 the first part of his book on "Religion within the bounds of Pure Reason," appeared in the Berlin Journal, and occasioned a collision on matters of theology between Kant and the Prussian government, by whom the publication of the remainder of the work was forbidden. Some of the German universities had, however, in questions of this sort, a right of appellate jurisdiction. Kant referred the case to the theological faculty of Königsberg, and the publication of the whole work, which appeared in 1793, was sanctioned by the university. The aim of the book is to represent the moral and spiritual part of Christianity as an element, that is, independent of the history and metaphysics doctrine with which it is associated; and thus permanently to reconcile with reason all essential religious belief or feeling, by placing this last above the changes and chances of historical and scientific controversy. The fact of a miraculous revelation is left undecided. Kant confines himself to the theory of its possibility, urging at the same time that the only final proof of its truth must lie in the harmony of its contents with reason and conscience. Language like that contained in this work naturally occasioned opposition, not merely among the ignorant and bigoted, but among devout and thoughtful persons. Kant was at the same time visited by the displeasure of the king, who exacted a pledge from him to refrain in future from lecturing or writing on questions of theology—a pledge which he observed till the death of Frederick in 1797, which, according to his understanding, set him free from the engagement. He then pressed his theory of religion anew on the world in another work, along with the correspondence to which his former essay had given rise. This theological collision seriously affected the tranquillity of the aged philosopher. He gradually withdrew from society, and about 1797 closed his public labours in the university with which he had been associated, first as a lecturer, and afterwards as a professor, since 1755.
Kant's life after his retirement from the chair showed a gradual decay of bodily and mental power. One of his last efforts as an author was a condemnatory criticism of Fichte, whose system was then rising into notice. Kant's "Logic" and his "Physical Geography" were given to the world by his pupils; the former in 1800 by Jäsche, and the latter by Rink in 1802. About this time his memory began to fail, and he suffered much from weakness and restlessness. On the 12th of February, 1804, he peacefully passed away, within about two months of his eightieth year; and a few days after, his mortal remains were lowered into the academic vault of Königsberg, in presence of the University and a great multitude of spectators from all parts of Prussia.
In the first forty-six years of his life, Kant had to struggle with poverty, and it was not till he was elected professor in 1770, that he had the means of maintaining a household of his own. He was never married. His daily life was marked by undeviating regularity. He was small, thin, and constitutionally feeble; but by a curiously careful attention to the laws of health, he was almost never ill during all his long and laborious life, and he preserved the studious habits, which he formed in youth on principles of reason and experience, into extreme old age. During his professorship, his man-servant awoke him all the year round at a quarter before five. Soon after, he received his morning meal; after which he read or meditated till seven, when he went to lecture. His lectures were for the most part extemporaneous, founded on a few jottings—written on slips of paper or on books—the fruits of deep previous thought. He never delivered doctrine which he had not pondered much and long, and his wonderful memory readily supplied the abundant analogies and anecdotes by which he illustrated what he delivered. Unlike his books, his lectures were expressed in an easy conversational style, and presented suggestive principles, from which the reflective part of his audience might unfold his subject for themselves, rather than an exhaustive exposition or system. After lecturing he spent the day till one o'clock in his study. At one, what was with him the social hour of the day commenced. He dined, and almost always had some friends to join him then—professors, physicians, ecclesiastics, merchants, foreigners, and young students—whose varied talk was one of his chief daily pleasures and means for gaining knowledge. On these occasions Kant usually banished his philosophy, and talked with great interest on physics, politics, and the ordinary topics of the day, often prolonging the conversation till the afternoon was far spent. His solitary walk, which no weather or change of season ever interrupted, followed soon after dinner. It was usually taken alone, that he might meditate in quiet. On his return he frequented the reading-room, for newspapers and politics were a great temptation to him. The remainder of the evening, till ten o'clock when he retired to rest, was given to reflection, and in part, as the night approached, to light reading, by which he calmed his mind after the labour of philosophical thought, and invited sleep. Kant was a great thinker, rather than a great reader, and his reading was very miscellaneous. Compared with Leibnitz, Cousin, or Hamilton, he knew little of the speculative opinions of the past, and was indifferent to the
