in some manner the being of this thing. The living being is the only corporeal thing which exists before its parts, and does not result from their mere aggregation. Since time and space and the living being are one and the same, we can arrive at a knowledge of life by studying the nature of time and space. For the sake of simplicity, D. substitutes the straight line. Any two points of this line determine it altogether. The part of the line comprised between the two points is the perfect, adequate, absolute expression of the entire straight line considered in the infinitude of its possible development. The finite is the adequate expression of the infinite. The only possible way in which the infinite can exist is to exist, like the straight line, en raison et en puissance. Similarly, the living being, though infinite in reality, has a bounded body. Parts of time and space are really expressions of total time and space, expressions which differ according to the positions they occupy. The whole of time and space, being infinite, is not adequately expressed by any of its parts, but only by their totality, which is itself an infinity. Similarly, the infinite universe does not exist in itself, but only in living beings, which, forming an infinity, express it an infinite number of times under infinitely different aspects, which are complements of each other.
A recent book[1] on an epistemological problem called out this article defending Hartmann's "transcendental realism" against the author's idealistic position and his criticisms on the Grundlegung des transcendentalen Realismus.
K. has examined only the Grundlegung, while the views of H. on the problem of causality are largely elaborated in other writings. In that book he sought to prove transcendental realism indirectly by showing the alternative belief to be absurd. K. tries to invalidate the argument by holding to a transcendental subject with transcendental functions behind the empirical conscious subject. If correct, this would be a valid answer; but two questions arise. First, Is such a position compatible with consistent idealism? and, secondly, Can it explain experience? May this trans-subjective sphere be regarded as epistemologically immanent, and so consistent with idealism which believes only in the immanent? K. explains it as an activity lying outside the reflective consciousness. It is, therefore, for my consciousness trans-subjective and epistemologically transcendent, though metaphysically, with reference to a possible absolute subject, it may be either transcendent or
- ↑ Die Entwickelung des Causalprobleme, Edmund König, 2 vols., 1888-9.
