the human mind' ..... The general problem of a Critick of the Reason is subdivided into two particular objects, as human Reason is into two particular faculties of knowledge. The first object is the investigation of the sensibility; the second, that of the understanding. The first question is, How is rational knowledge possible through sensibility? The second question, How is the same knowledge possible through the understanding?' (pp. 4, 5.)

Those who maintain that it is improper to speak of Space and Time as forms of Thought, must either maintain that Kant held Sensibility not to be a faculty of the Mind (thinking principle); or that the term Thought is not, in English discourse, a correct expression for the activity of the thinking principle. I believe that the student will agree with me in saying that, although Kant restricted the term Thought to what we call Conception or Judgment, he understood by the activity of the mental faculties (Pure Reason) what we understand by Thought.

It is not, however, to continue this discussion that I again trespass on your space; but to reply to the personal part of Mr. Sylvester's letter. He charges me with misquoting myself and with misquoting him. I said that, in my exposition, Space and Time were uniformly spoken of as forms of Intuition and I say so still. Mr. Sylvester has taken the trouble of reading that exposition without taking the trouble of understanding it; he declares that he has marked the word intuition as occurring once and forms of sensibility several times; but forms of intuition never.' His carefulness may be estimated by the fact that the word intuition occurs four times on the two pages: his comprehension by the fact that it is perfectly indifferent whether Sensibility or Intuition be the term employed, since sensibility is the faculty and Intuition the action of that faculty. Mr. Sylvester, not understanding this, says, 'If form of sensibility is as good to use as form of intuition, form of understanding ought to be as good as form of thought; but Mr. Lewes owns that the former is indefensible, whilst he avers that the latter is correct.' Considering that this passage occurs in a letter which charges me with unfair misquotation, it is curious. So far from

owning that the former is 'indefensible,' it is what I declare to be true; and, with regard to the latter, though I do think a form of Understanding is a form of Thought, my statement was altogether away from it, namely, that Space and Time as forms of Sensibility, would be incorrectly spoken of as forms of the Understanding.

With regard to the alleged misquotation of his own words, which he characterises as unfair and as 'too much like fighting with poisoned weapons,' it was a charge which both astonished and pained me. There are few things for which I have a bitterer contempt than taking such unfair advantages of an adversary. I beg to apologise to Professor Sylvester for any misrepresentation which, unintentionally, I may have been guilty of. But, in accepting his denial of the construction I placed upon his language, I must still say that, after re-reading his letter I am at a loss to see what other construction it admits of, that has any bearing on the dispute, and that he has not expressed his meaning with sufficient clearness. Intuition and Thought are there compared with Force and Energy as terms 'not convertible'; Force is detached from Energy as potential from actual, and Intuition without Thought is made to hold an analogous position. Here is the passage; let the reader judge:

'Can Mr. Lewes point to any passage in Kant where Space and Time are designated forms of thought? I shall indeed be surprised if he can do so—as much surprised as if Mr. Todhunter or Mr. Routh in their Mechanical Treatises were to treat energy and force as convertible terms. To such a misuse of the word energy it would be little to the point to urge that force without energy is a mere potential tendency. It is just as little to the point, in the matter at issue, for Mr. Lewes to inform the readers of Nature that intuition without thought is mere sensuous impression.'

Is it to use 'poisoned weapons' to interpret this as assuming that Intuition and Thought differ as potential and actual? I repeat that, since Mr. Sylvester disclaims the interpretation, my only course is to apologise for it; but, after his own misinterpretations

of me, he will not, I hope, persist in attributing mine to a desire to take an unfair advantage. If I make no reply to the other points raised in the various letters it is in order not to prolong the discussion.

GEORGE HENRY LEWES.

I Do not know whether Mr. Sylvester and Dr. Ingleby will be satisfied with Mr. Lewes' letter in yours of the 27th. I am not, and I think, in defending his former mistake, Mr. Lewes has fallen into additional errors.

It is undoubtedly fair to translate an author into your own language before criticising him, provided you found no criticism on the language that you have put into his mouth. But this I think Mr. Lewes has done. He accuses Kant of inconsistency in speaking of pure à priori cognitions, when, on his own system, pure thought only supplies one element to these cognitions, the other being derived from sense or intuition. Now (not to insist here that Kant constantly uses the term cognition in a wider sense than that which Mr. Lewes insists on fastening upon him), this criticism is evidently invalidated by the simple remark that Kant admits pure intuitions as well as pure concepts, and explains the nature of mathematics, as a system of à priori cognitions, by the fact that its object-matter consists of nothing but pure intuitions.

Mr. Lewes now informs us that Kant's Intuition and Thought 'differ as species and genus.' According to Kant they differ in kind; and Leibnitz was as wrong in making sensibility a species of thought as Locke was in making Thought a species of sensibility. Space and Time, Mr. Lewes adds, are forms of 'mental activity' and, therefore, are properly termed 'forms of Thought,' in the meaning of the latter term which is usually current in this country. If they were forms of mental activity they would be forms of Thought, according to Kant, likewise; for the criterion by which Kant distinguishes between Intuition and Thought (under which term he includes both the understanding proper and the reason proper) is that, in the former, the

mind is passive (receptive) while, in the latter, it is spontaneously active; and it is precisely on this ground-the passive reception of them by the mind-that he refers Space and Time to Sensibility rather than Thought. This is repeatedly brought out in the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. See in particular Sections 11 (Meiklejohn, p. 80) and 18 (Meiklejohn, p. 90).

I think if Mr. Lewes will turn to the preface to the first edition of the Critick,' he will see that the transcendental logic only (and perhaps I might limit it to the transcendental dialectic) grapples directly with the problem indicated by the title of the book. The Aesthetic is a preliminary inquiry, which proves afterwards of great use; but is not to be considered as a Critick of Pure Reason in this particular department. His using the term concept' of space, is certainly confusing; but its explanation, I think, is to be found in a passage in the 'Transcendental Exposition' of this 'concept' (Meiklejohn, p. 25), where he says, 'It must be originally intuition, for from a mere conception no propositions can be deducted which go out beyond the conception, and this happens in geometry.' In the preceding page he similarly qualifies his statement that Space is an intuition. 'No conception as such,' he says, 'can be so conceived as if it contained, within itself, an infinite multitude of representations.' We may now have a concept as well as an intuition of Space and Time; but the intuition was the original form of the idea, and it is to the intuition that we must always have recourse in mathematics when we wish to discover a new truth.

I think, if Mr. Lewes will again read over the Transcendental Aesthetic and the parts of the Transcendental Analytic which are closely related to it, he will see that Kant never designates the original representations of space and time 'concepts,' or refers their origin to 'pure reason.' W. H. STANLEY MONCK.

Trinity College, Dublin, Jan. 29.

[This correspondence must now cease.-ED.]

In order that the reader may judge of the correctness of the assertions made by Mr. Lewes in his concluding letter, and his general fairness in controversy, I request attention to the annexed catena of passages drawn from the above correspondence.*

No. 1. The AUTHOR.

'It is very common not to say universal with English writers even such authorised' (I meant to say authoritative)' ones as Whewell, Lewes or Herbert Spencer to refer to Kant's doctrine as affirming space to be "a form of thought," or "of the understan ling." This is putting into Kant's mouth words which he would have been the first to disclaim.'

No. 2. Mr. G. H. LEWES.

(a) Kant assuredly did teach as Professor Sylvester says, and as I HAVE REPEatedly stated, THAT SPACE IS A FORM OF INTUITION.'

(B) Every student of Kant knows that intuition without thought is mere sensuous impression.'

(7) While therefore anyone who spoke of space as

66 A FORM OF THE UNDERSTANDING" WOULD CERTAINLY USE LANGUAGE WHICH KANT WOULD HAVE DISCLAIMED, Kant himself would have been surprised to hear that space was not held by him as a form of thought.'

[(a) In no one single instance in his fifty pages of exposition and criticism has Mr. Lewes ever once stated that Space is a Form of Intuition.]

No. 3. The AUTHOR.

Can Mr. Lewes point to any passage in Kant where Space and Time are designated forms of thought. I shall indeed be

The words in SMALL CAPITALS are in ordinary print in the original passages.