Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/543

HI. KANT HAS NOT ANSWERED HUME. By DR. J. HUTCHISON STIRLING. I SUPPOSE there is no one in Germany at present, and scarcely anyone anywhere else, it may be, to whom, even on slight acquaintance with the subject, it is not understood that Kant has answered Hume : rather indeed that this, so to speak, is the least of it, and that Kant has not only answered but passed Hume ; with simply a word, more- over, in the bygoing to intimate : ' I take your back, David Hume, merely as starting-ground to a leap a leap into a new world a new world of hitherto undiscovered nieta- physic, of heretofore despaired-of philosophy '. Now, be it as it may with this latter consideration (of a new metaphysic) in itself or its consequences, I for my part, after the most anxious and long-continued inquiries, am greatly disposed to doubt or deny the mere preliminary the success of the start, the success of Kant as in opposition to Hume. To decide the point, it will suggest itself as necessary, first of all, to ascertain what Hume's problem is, and then, second, what is Kant's answer. Omitting quotations for the sake of space, we may just say at once that Hnme's problem is simply that of necessity the necessity of the connexion which we undoubtedly assume as always present in every instance of the relation of cause and effect. A fire, for example, is always followed by heat and light, but let us just say light. Now this duality of fire and light is an. instance of the relation of cause and effect, and the proposition is that in this relation, or in the con- nexion between the cause and the effect, necessity what we may call an element of necessity is present. If we name the fire, as cause, A, and the light, as effect, B, then the relative general understanding asserted for us is, that B does not merely follow A, but that it must follow. AB, fire and light, are always AB, fire and light : they are never BA, light and fire. The duality AB, or of fire and light, is no mere succession, no mere sequence. I put my stick into the corner, and immediately thereafter I hear rain fall ; but I am not entitled thereby to enunciate the enthymeme, stat bacidus in- angulo, ergo pi u it. In the same way, that simple old man