Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/390

KANT. /the most universal laws of nature, the empirical laws of nature_only particul ar determinatwrns^oX tiiese. All order and regularity take their origin in the spirit, and are put into objects by this. Universal and necessary knowledge remained inexplicable so long as it was assumed that the understanding must conform itself to objects ; it is at once explained if, conversely, we make objects conform themselves to the understanding. This is a reversal of philosophical opinion which may justly be compared to the Copernican revolution in astronomy ; it is just as paradox- ical as the latter, but just as incontestably true, and just as rich in results. The sequel will show that this strangely sounding principle, that things conform themselves to our representations and the laws of nature are dependent on the understanding, is calculated to make us humble rather than proud. Our understanding is lawgiver within the limits of its knowledge, no doubt, but it knows only within the limits of its legislative authority ; nature, to which it dictates laws, is nothing but a totality of phenomena ; be- yond the limits of the phenomenal, where its commands become of no effect, its wishes also find no hearing. In the second edition the Analytic of Principles contains as a supplement a " Refutation of Idealism," which, in opposition to Descartes's position that the only immediate experience is Inner experience, from which we reach outer experience by inference alone, argues that, conversely, it is only through outer experience, which is immediate experi- ence proper, that inner experience — as the consciousness of my own existence in time — is possible. For all time determination presupposes something permanent in per- ception, and this permanent something cannot be in me (the mere representation of an external thing), but only actually existing things which I perceive without me. There is, further, a chapter on the ** Ground of the Distinction of all Objects in general into Phenomena and Noumena," with an appendix on the Amphiboly (ambiguity) of the Concepts of Reflection. The latter shows that the concepts of compar- ison : identity and difference, agreement and opposition, the internal and the external, matter and form, acquire entirely different meanings when they relate to phenomena and to .J