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Kant's Critical Philosophy for English Readers (1872)
Kant's Critical Philosophy for English Readers - 1872 Author:Immanuel Kant Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 8 Reflections on the First Preface. Metaphysic is the only science, as we shall show, which is capable of absolute completion within a short time, by means of... more » united efforts; for it is nothing but the systematic inventory of what we possess by pure Reason. Nothing can here escape us ; nor can any experience increase our knowledge. By means of the present Critick the ground has been cleared and prepared, and here the reader must perform the part of an impartial judge. When we proceed to build up the system of pure reason, under the title ' Metaphysic of Nature,' he should join us as a zealous co-operator, especially as the investigation of these details is easy, and more a recreation than a difficult task. § 3. Such in substance, and to a great extent, in words, was the remarkable Preface with which Kant introduced his great treatise to the philosophic world. It bears a strong family likeness to the utterances of other intellectual reformers, and suggests the mental attitude of Bacon and of Descartes, of Locke and of Hume. There is the same boldness in asserting the discovery, and the same modesty in attributing it, not to genius, but to method. There are the same hopes of a speedy termination of error, the same conviction that even ordinary minds,The Two Prefaces Compared. ' This is one of the many passages which indicate that Kant laid little stress on what are called unconscious modifications of mind. when armed with proper weapons, can help in the victory. Kant's analogy to Bacon was indeed so striking, that he prefixed to his second edition a memorable motto from the Preface to the Instauratio Magna— ' De nobis ipsis silemus. De re autem, quaeagitur, petimus, ut homines earn non opinionem sed opus esse cogitent: ac pro certo habeant, non sectae nos alicuius, aut...« less