"A Demonstration of the sophistical Subtlety contained in the four Syllogistic Figures," 8vo.; and in 1763," An Attempt towards introducing the Proposition of negative Magnitudes into Philosophy," 8vo.; and "On the only possible Method of proving the Existence of the Deity," 8vo. In 1764, he gave to the world "Reflections on an Adventurer, &c." a fanatic, who was then deluding the country people by false pretences to a prophetic spirit, 8vo.; which was followed by "An Essay on Disorders of the Head," 8vo. containing a philosophical examination of the subject; "Observations on the Sublime and Beautiful," 8vo.; and "An Essay on Evidence in Metaphysical Sciences," which obtained the accessit of the royal academy of sciences at Berlin. In 1765, he published, under the simple title of "Intelligence respecting the Arrangement of Lectures for the Winter half Year," a beautiful system of lecturing on metaphysics, logic, and ethics; and in the following year he attacked Swedenborg, who pretended to a converse with spirits, in his "Dreams of a Ghost-seer, illustrated by Dreams in Metaphysics," 8vo. About this time he obtained the place of subinspector of the royal library at the palace; and he also undertook the management of the beautiful collection of natural curiosities, and cabinet of arts, belonging to M. Saturgus, minister of the commercial department, which afforded him an opportunity of studying mineralogy. Some years afterwards, however, he resigned both these appointments.

During the period of Kant's life which had now, elapsed, his reputation and literary productions had recommended him to the notice of the Prussian monarch, who made him repeated offers of a professorship in the universities of Jena, Erlangen, Mittau, and Halle, with the rank of privy-counsellor; but his attachment to his native place, and his desire to labour and be useful on the spot where he had received his physical and mental existence, induced him to decline those proffered honours. He might also have obtained the professorship of poetry in his own university; but, considering himself to be inadequate to the situation, he would not accept of it. At length, in 1770, a vacancy having taken place in the post of professor in the metaphysical department, it was immediately bestowed on our philosopher, who, in the month of March, entered upon his long-wished-for office. According to the statutes of the university of Konigsberg, every new professor, when raised to the academical chair, is obliged to publish

and defend an inaugural dissertation, before he is permitted to exercise his public functions, or to become a member of the senate. On this occasion, Kant chose for his subject, "De Mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis Forma et Principiis," and afterwards published his Dissertation in 4to. This is a very elaborate, abstruse performance, and contains the outlines. of his philosophy, which has been since distinguished by the name of "The Critical System." It excited much attention in several of the German schools, and gained converts from other systems; but, for some time, chiefly in the university of Konigsberg. Kant's new situation required, that he should be almost entirely occupied in metaphysical studies; and he pursued them with the most unremitting: ardour. At this time he maintained a philo sophical correspondence with several of the first literary characters of the age, and parti-cularly with the celebrated Lambert, then pre-sident of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, who, in his "Cosmological Letters,' had proposed theories coinciding with those of Kant, and had pursued nearly the same path of philosophizing. From this time, also, Kant's publications were almost exclusively of a me-taphysical nature. In 1775, appeared his short "Essay on the different Races of human Beings," by way of announcing his lectures on the subject. In 1781, besides his "Correspondence with Lambert," he published his "Critique of pure Reason," 8vo. which is the most important of his metaphysical productions,. and intended to exhibit a full and complete illustration of the fundamental principles of his. new philosophy. Soon after its appearance, it was attacked by different German. writers, who entertained different judgments of its merits; and indeed of its meaning, owing to the frequent obscurity of the author's style, and the construction and arrangement of his periods, which are, in many places, ungraceful, heavy, and overloaded. His doctrine, however, met with numerous admirers and adherents in the German universities, and soon produced a revolution in the philosophy of that country. With the design of obviating misconceptions, and of facilitating an acquaintancewith his system, in 1783, Kant published "Prolegomena, or introductory Observations. applicable to every future System of Metaphysics, that may deserve the Name of a Science," 8vo.; which contains an abstract of his "Critique," in an analytical method, which the author has here adopted, in order to return by the same path on which he had before advanced.

synthetically. In 1784, besides some smaller pieces, printed either separately, or in different periodical works, he published, " Reflections upon the Foundation of the Powers and Methods which Reason is entitled to employ in judging of its Stability;" and "Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals," 8vo. In 1786, he published," Metaphysical Prin ciples of Natural Philosophy," 8vo. ; in which he entered at large into the exercise of reasoning powers with regard to material objects: and in the same year, he was appointed rector of the university. Not long after this, without any solicitation on his own part, he received a considerable addition to his salary from the foundation of the upper college.

In 1787, our philosopher published "Fundamental Principles of the Critique of Taste," 8vo.; and in the same year, he roused the public curiosity by his "Critique on practical Reason," 8vo.; in which he enlarged on the moral, as he had before on the metaphysical, principles of reason. In the summer of 1788, he was chosen rector of the university a second time; and not long afterwards, senior of the philosophical faculty. Though Kant was now far advanced in life, he continued his literary industry, and presented to the public, "Religion considered within the Limits of plain Reason," 1793, 8vo. in which he endeavours to shew the agreement between reason and revelation; "On the End, or Termination of all Things," 1795, 8vo.; "Project for a perpetual Peace, a philosophical Attempt," 1795, 8vo.; an epistle "to Sömmering, on the Organ of the Soul," 1796, 8vo.; "On the newfangled haughty Tone in philosophical Discussions," 1796, Svo.; "Metaphysical Elements of Jurisprudence," 1797, 8vo.; "Metaphysical Elements of Ethics, or, Doctrinal Virtue," 1797, 8vo.; " On the Art of Book-making, in two Letters to M. Frederic Nicholai," 1797, 8vo.; "On the Power of the Mind to overcome morbid Sensations by mere Resolution," 1797, 8vo.; " Answer to the reiterated Question, whether the human Race is in a progressive State of Improvement?" 1798, 8vo.; "Contest between the Faculties," 1798, 8vo. ; and, "A Pragmatical View of Anthropology," 1798, 8vo. In the last mentioned work, he takes almost a formal leave of the public as an author, consigning his papers over to the revision of others. Soon afterwards he gave up all his official situations, and, in consequence of his infirmities, retired into solitude. From his papers his friends published, "Logic, or, a Guide to Lecturing," 1801, 8vo.; "Physical

Geography," 1802, 8vo.; "On giving Instruction," 1803, 8vo. ; and "Upon the Prize Question of the Royal Academy at BerlinWhat is the actual Progress made in Metaphysical Science, since Leibnitz and Wolf?" Besides the articles already enumerated, he was the author of numerous philosophical and ethical papers, inserted in the Berlin Monthly Magazine," and in the "German Mercury." For seventy years, Kant had enjoyed an almost uninterrupted state of good health; but in the last ten years of his life, his corporeal and mental decay was painfully visible to his friends. Loss of appetite, of sight, of voice, of teeth, of strength, and memory, proclaimed his approaching dissolution; and a fit of apoplexy gave him the finishing stroke, on the 12th of February 1804, when he had nearly completed the eightieth year of his age.

Immanuel Kant was in person of a middle stature, and of a remarkably slender and delicate make. In his countenance there was an air of dignity mingled with complacency, and his fine large blue eyes were expressive both of genius and benevolence. His intellectual qualifications were of no ordinary stamp. He had an astonishing faculty of unfolding the most abstruse principles, and such a facility in deducing every thing from his own reflections, as gave him at length such an habitual familiarity with himself, that he could not properly enter into the sentiments of others. He also possessed an extraordinary faculty of retaining words, and representing absent things to himself. He could describe objects, an account of which he had met with in books, even better than many who had seen them. Thus, for example, he once gave a description, in the presence of a Londoner, of Westminster bridge, according to its form and structure, length, breadth, height, and dimensions of all its parts, which led the Englishman to enquire how long he had been in London, and whether he had dedicated himself to the study of architecture; when, to his surprize, he was assured that Kant had never passed the boundaries of Prussia, and was no architect. A similar question was put to him by Brydone, to whom he described in conversation the relative situations of the principal places and scenes in Italy. By the aid of his quick observation and clear conception, he was enabled to converse with admirable accuracy on chemical experiments, although he had never witnessed any process in chemistry, and did not begin the theoretical study of it, till after the sixtieth year of his age. Dr. Hagen, the great chemist, could not

forbear expressing his perfect astonishment, while conversing with Kant at dinner on the subject, to find any one able, by simple reading, to make himself such a perfect master of a science so difficult. This happy talent, combined with general reading, rendered him an universal scholar, so that at length, there was no science in which he was not a proficient. The consequence of having such a happy memory was, that he set no value on an extensive library. As he could acquire the contents of books, by reading them once or twice, the books themselves were rather burthensome to him than otherwise. He accordingly made a contract with a bookseller, to send to him all new books in sheets, which he read through in that form, and generally returned afterwards. To the love of truth he was ardently devoted; and liberality of sentiment was the result. He wished to establish all human knowledge on the firm basis of reason, and, therefore, rejected all principles as visionary, which did not admit of a fundamental explication. He conceived, however, of religion as an inherent quality of our souls, which panted after some higher object than this transitory existence: it demanded no proof from without, it flowed of itself from within ourselves. From this view of the subject he was accused by some of mysticism, while others thought that they saw in his doctrine what was inimical to divine truth. Thus much, however, is certain, from the testimony of his best friends, and the whole tenor of his works, that he was a firm believer in the Deity, a future state, and Christianity. If he did not attend to the practical part of religion, this originated in his own private views of those matters, rather than in any disregard of sacred ordinances. He thought, by a life of good deeds, to do more honour to the Almighty than by the simple compliance with human institutions. His political creed subjected him to still more censure than his metaphysical sentiments; although, perhaps, with as little justice. He was a citizen of the world; but, at the same time, a friend to peace and good order. He acknowledged the equal rights of all men as originally born free; but he deprecated every violent effort which was made to acquire that freedom; and in his own conduct always testified due respect and submission to established authorities. Both by his precepts and example, he inculcated the strictest and purest integrity and morality. In private life, he was affable, courteous, friendly, and benevolent to enthusiasm. Every reader of his writings, who was not acquainted with him,

would have been agreeably surprized in finding the contrast between the abstruse and deep thinker, and the sociable and lively companion. He was the life of every company in which he mixed; and mirth, discourse, and wit, never flagged when he was present. Much as he liked to converse on matters of philosophy, he carefully avoided these topics in mixed companies. Here he lost the philosopher in the man of the world, and spoke with freedom on dress, politics, public occurrences, or housekeeping, as the males or females of the society turned the discourse. It was his custom to retire to rest at nine o'clock in the winter, and ten o'clock in the summer; rising at five o'clock in the former, and four o'clock in the latter season. By this commendable and healthy practice, daily exercise on foot, serenity of mind, temperance in eating and drinking, constant employment, and cheerful company, he protracted his life to the advanced period which we have already mentioned.

Since the Kantian, or, as it is called, the critical philosophy has been very generally admired in Germany, and, for a time, banished almost every other system from the Protestant universities, notwithstanding the great difficulty of comprehending it, from the obscurity of the author's phraseology, and the subtlety of his reasonings; it will be expected that we should present our readers with a synopsis of its fundamental principles. This we shall do from the able and impartial view of them given in the supplement to the "Encyclopædia Britannica ;" leaving the abstract, without any comment, to the judgment of our philosophical readers. "Kant divides all our knowledge into that which is a priori, and that which is a posteriori. Knowledge a priori is conferred upon us by our nature. Knowledge a posteriori is derived from our sensations, or from experience; and is by our author denominated empyric. One would at first be induced, by this account of human knowledge, to believe that Kant intended to revive the system of innate ideas; but we very quickly discover that such is not his system. He considers all our knowledge as acquired. He maintains, that experience is the occasional cause or productrice of all our knowledge; and that without it we could not have a single idea. Our ideas a priori, he says, are produced with experience, and could not be produced without it; but they are not produced by it, or do not proceed from it. They exist in the mind; they are the forms of the mind. They are distinguished from other ideas by two marks, which are easily discerned;

i. e. they appear universal and necessary; or, in other words, they admit of no exception, and their converse is impossible. Ideas which we derive from experience have no such cha-racters. We can suppose, that what we have scen, or felt, or heard once, we may see, feel, or hear again; but we do not perceive any impossibility in its being otherwise. For in stance; a house is on fire in my view: I am certain of this fact; but it affords me no general or necessary knowledge. It is altogether a posteriori; the materials are furnished by the individual impression which I have received; and that impression might have been very different. But if I take twice two balis, and learn to call twice two four, I shall be immediately convinced, that any two bodies whatever, when added to any two other bodies, will constantly make the sum of bodies four. Experience has indeed afforded me the opportunity of acquiring this knowledge; but it has not given it to me; for how could experience prove to me that this truth will never vary? Experience must always be limited; and, therefore, cannot teach us that which is necessary and universal. It is not experience which discovers to us, that we shall have the surface of the whole pyramid by multiplying its base by the third part of its height; or that two parallel lines, extended in infinitum, shall never

⚫ meet.

All the truths of pure mathematics are, in the language of Kant, a priori. Thus, that a straight line is the shortest of all possible lines between two fixed points; that the three angles of a triangle are always equal to two right angles; that we have the same sum, whether we add five to seven or seven to five; and that we have the same remainder when we subtract five from ten as when we subtract ten from fifteen-are so many propositions, which are true a priori. Pure knowledge a priori, is that which is absolutely without any mixture of experience. Two and two men make four men, is a truth, of which the knowledge is a priori; but it is not PURE knowledge, because the truth is particular. The ideas of substance, and of cause and effect, are a priori; and when they are separated from the objects to which they refer (we suppose from this or that particular object), they form, in the language of Kant, void ideas (or, in the language of Locke, abstract ideas). It is our knowledge a priori, i. e. that knowledge which precedes experience as to its origin, which renders experience possible. Our faculty of knowledge has an effect on our ideas of sensation analogous to that

of a vessel, which gives its own form to the liquor with which it is filled. Thus, in all our knowledge a posteriori, there is something a priori derived from our faculty of knowledge. All the operations of our minds; all the impressions which our external and internal senses receive and retain, are brought into effect by the conditions, the forms, which exist in us by the pure ideas a priori, which alone render all our other knowledge certain.

Time and space are the two essential forms of the mind the former for impressions received by the internal sense; the second for those received by our external senses. Time is necessary in all the immediate (perhaps intuitive) perceptions of objects; and space in all external perceptions. Extension is nothing real but as the form of our sensations. If extension were known to us only by experience, it would then be possible to conceive that there might be sensible objects without space. It is by means of the form space, that we are enabled, a priori, to attribute to external objects impenetrability, divisibility, mobility, &c.; and it is by means of the form time that we attribute to any thing duration, succession, simultaneity, permanence, &c. Arithmetic is derived from the form of our internal sense; and geometry from that of our external. Our understanding collects the ideas received by the impressions made on our organs of sense, confers on these ideas unity by a particular force a priori; and thereby forms the representation of each object. Thus, a man is successively struck with the impression of all the parts which form a particular garden. His understanding unites these impressions, or the ideas resulting from them; and in the unity produced by that unifying act, it acquires the idea of the garden. If the objects which produce the impressions afford also the matter of the ideas, then the ideas are empyric; but if the objects only unfold the forms of the thought, the ideas are a priori. The act of the understanding which unites the perceptions of the various parts of an object into the perception of one whole, is the same with that which unites the attribute with its subject. Judgments are divided into two species; analytic and synthetic. An analytic judgment is that in which the attribute is the mere developement of the subject, and is found by the simple analysis of the perception: as, bodies are extended; a triangle has three sides. synthetical judgment is that where the attribute is connected with the subject by a cause (or basis) taken from the faculty of knowledge, which renders this connection necessary; as,

A

body is heavy wood is combustible; the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles. There are syntheses a priori and a posteriori; and the former being formed by experience, we have the sure means of avoiding deception. It is a problem, however, of the utmost importance, to discover how synthetic judginents a priori are possible. How comes it, for example, that we can affirm that all the radii of a circle are equal, and that two parallel lines will never meet? It is by studying the forms of our mind that we discover the possibility of making these affirmations. In all objects there are things which must necessarily be THOUGHT (be supplied by thought); as, for example, that there is a substance, an accident, a cause, and certain effects. The forms of the understanding are, quantity, quality, relation, modality. Quantity, Kant distinguishes into general, particular, and individual; quality, into affirmation, negation, infinite; relation, into categoric, hypothetic, and disjunctive; and modality, into problematic, certain, and necessary. He adds also to these properties of the four principal forms of the understanding, a table of categories, or fundamental ideas a priori. Quantity, gives unity, plurality, totality. Quality, gives reality, negation, limitation. Relation, gives inherence, substance, cause, dependence, community, reciprocity. Modality, gives possibility, impossibility, existence, nothing, necessity, accident. These categories can only be applied to experience. When, in the consideration of an object, we abstract all that regards sensation, there remain only the pure ideas of the understanding, or, the categories, by which a thing is conceived as a thing. Pure reason is the faculty of tracing our knowledge a priori, to subject it to principles, to trace it from its necessary conditions, till it be entirely without condition, and in complete unity. This pure reason has certain fundamental rules, after which the necessary connection of our ideas is taken for the determination of the objects in themselves: an illusion which we cannot avoid, even when we are acquainted with it. We can conclude from what we know to what we do not know; and we give an objective reality to those conclusions from an appearance which leads us on.

The writings of Kant are multifarious; but it is in his work entitled "The Critique of pure Reason," that he has chiefly expounded his system. This work is a treatise on a science, of which Kant's scholars consider him to be the founder, and which has for its objects the natural forces, the limits of our reason, as the source of our pure knowledge a priori, the

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principles of all truth. Kant does not promise to give even an exposition of these branches of knowledge, but merely to examine their origin; not to extend them, but to prevent the bad use of them, and to guard us against error. denominates this science, transcendental criticism; because he calls all knowledge, of which the object is not furnished by the senses, and which concerns the kind and origin of our ideas, transcendental knowledge. The Criticism of pure Reason, which gives only the fundamental ideas and maxims a priori, without explaining the ideas which are derived from them, can lead, says Kant, to a complete system of pure knowledge, which ought to be denominated transcendental philosophy, of which the Criticism presents the architectonic plan; i. e. the plan regular and well disposed. The work entitled, "The Critique of pure Reason," is divided into several parts, or sections, under the titles of asthetic transcendental; transcendental logic; the pure ideas of the understanding; the transcendental judgment; the parologism of pure reason; the ideal transcendental; the criticism of speculative theologies; the discipline of pure reason, &c. But to proceed with our abstract of the system. We know objects only by the manner in which they affect us; and as the impressions which they make upon us are only certain apparitions or phenomena, it is impossible for us to know what an object is in itself. Inconsequence of this assertion, some have supposed that Kant was an idealist, like Berkley and many others, who have thought that sensations are only appearances, and that there is no truth but in our reason. But, according to him, our understanding, when it considers the apparitions or phenomena, acknowledges the existence of the objects in themselves, inasmuch as they serve for the bases of those apparitions; though we know nothing of their reality, and though we can have no certitude but in experience. When we apply the forms of our understanding, such as unity, totality, substance, casuality, existence, to certain ideas which have no object in space and time, we make a fallacious and arbitrary application. All these forms can bear only on sensible objects, and not on the world of things in itself, of which we can THINK, but which we can never KNOW. Beyond things sensible, we can only have opinions, or a belief of our reason.

The motives to consider a proposition as true, are either objective, i. e. taken from an external object, so that every man shall be obliged to acknowledge them; and then there is a truth evident, and susceptible of demonstra

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