quote a passage from Kant, in which the application of the law of specification to the sources of our knowledge is especially recommended; for it gives countenance to my present endeavour:—
"It is of the highest importance to isolate various sorts of knowledge, which in kind and origin are different from others, and to take great care lest they be mixed up with those others with which, for practical purposes, they are generally united. What is done by the chemist in the analysis of substances, and by the mathematician in pure mathematics, is far more incumbent on the philosopher, in order to enable him to define clearly the part which, in the promiscuous employment of the understanding, belongs to a special kind of knowledge, as well as its peculiar value and influence." [1]
§ 3. Utility of this Inquiry.
Should I succeed in showing that the principle which forms the subject of the present inquiry does not issue directly from one primitive notion of our intellect, but rather in the first instance from various ones, it will then follow, that neither can the necessity it brings with it, as a firmly established a priori principle, be one and the same in all cases, but must, on the contrary, be as manifold as the sources of the principle itself. Whoever therefore bases a conclusion upon this principle, incurs the obligation of clearly specifying on which of its grounds of necessity he founds his conclusion and of designating that ground by a special name, such as I am about to suggest. I hope that this may be a step towards promoting greater lucidity and precision in philosophising; for I hold the extreme
- ↑ Kant, " Krit. d. r. V. Methodenlehre. Drittes Hauptstück," p. 842 of the 1st edition. Engl. Tr. by F. M. Miiller. "Architectonic of Pure Reason," p. 723.
