Part 13

Yet, notwithstanding the apparently glaring distinction between the judgment of definition and the individual judgment, between truth of reason and truth of fact; notwithstanding its secular celebrity and its confirmation by universal agreement and common usage, this distinction meets with a very grave difficulty. In order to understand it, we must, above all, establish clearly what we have just stated in positing that distinction and in making the individual judgment or truth of fact follow the judgment of definition or truth of reason. We have already posited a distinction of this kind between intuition and concept, and have noted that we have thus distinguished two fundamental forms of the Spirit: the representative or fantastic form, and the logical. Now, in positing as distinct the judgment of definition and the individual judgment, do we mean to do something analogous? Do we mean to distinguish the logical form (concept or definition) from another form, no longer logical, although containing the logical form in itself as overcome and subordinate, in the same way that the concept contains in itself the intuition? In other words, is the individual judgment something ultralogical? It can certainly be asserted that it is not mere definition; but can it be asserted that it is not logical? The words used should not lead to misconception. If in the individual judgment the subject be a representation, it is also true that this representation is not found there as it would be found in æsthetic contemplation, but as subject of a judgment, and therefore not as a representation pure and simple, but as a representation thought, or made logical. Hegel has several times remarked that whoever doubts the unity of individual and universal can never have paid attention to the judgments which he utters at every instant. In these, by means of the copula, he resolutely affirms that Peter is a man, or that the individual (the subject) is the universal (predicate); not something different, not a piece or fragment, but just that, the universal. Further, are not truths of fact also truths of reason? Would it not be irrational to think that a fact was not the fact it had been? The existence of Cæsar and of Napoleon is not less rational than that of quality and of becoming. And are not both kinds of facts equally necessary--those called contingent not less than those called necessary? We are right to laugh at those who like to think that things could have happened otherwise than they have happened. Cæsar and Napoleon are as necessary as quality and becoming.

It follows from these considerations (which could be easily multiplied) that the individual judgment is not less logical than that of definition. Truths of fact, contingent and a posteriori, are not less logical than those of reason, necessary and a priori. But if this be so, the distinction between the two forms would not be a distinction between forms of the spirit, but a subdistinction within the logical form of the spirit: a subdistinction of which we have already denied the possibility. For it is not clear how a logical thought, or thought of the universal, can be two thinkings, one in one way, one in another: one universal of the universal, the other universal of the individual. Either the first is void, or the second is improper. Intuition and concept are distinguished as individual from universal; but that universal should be distinguished from universal by the introduction of individuality as element of differentiation is inconceivable.

The difficulty becomes greater from the equal inconceivability and impossibility of abandoning the result reached above, by which the individual judgment was shown to be possible only by means of a concept or judgment of definition. Every attempt that may be made to cancel that presupposition and to reconceive the individual or perceptive judgment as preceding the concept and being altogether without logical character, a mere assertion of fact, unenlightened by universality, must be considered, for the reasons we have given, to be entirely vain. If we cannot admit a duality of logical forms, still less can we admit that an alogical character, below the level of logic altogether, attaches to the individual judgment.

There seems to be but one way out of such a difficulty: namely, to preserve the result attained, that is to say, the necessity of the judgment of definition as the presupposition of the individual judgment, but to affirm at the same time the necessity of the individual judgment as the presupposition of the judgment of definition. Admitting this supposition by way of hypothesis, let us see what it would mean and what effect it would have in the discussion. Since the one judgment presupposes the other, and this presupposition is reciprocal, we could no longer talk of distinction between the two, but of unity pure and simple, of identity, in which distinction could arise only by abstraction and the arbitrary act of dividing what cannot exist save as indivisible. But, on the other hand, the distinction, although abstract, would always retain its value as a didactic means of making clear the true nature of the logical act. Thus we should justify our first proceeding to develop the concept and the judgment of definition and then the individual judgment, and also the reservation that we have always made as to the provisional nature of such distinction, and thus also the new question as to the unity of the act, put and answered in the way proposed. All the difficulties arising from the appearance of a duality of logical forms would disappear. Definitions and individual judgments, truth of reason and truth of fact, necessity and contingency, a priori and a posteriori, would be revealed as one act and one truth. And we should also be justified in talking of them as distinct acts, for in expressing that single truth and single judgment verbally or in literature, we can attach greater importance now to the definition, and now to the statement of fact; now to the subject, and now to the predicate.

This path, which would offer such advantages and would constitute a true way out of the difficulty, seems, however, to be closed to us by the fact that in definitions there is no trace whatever of individual judgments which, on this hypothesis, would have to be contained within and be one with them. If we say "the will is the practical form of the spirit," or "virtue is the habit of moral actions," where is to be found in such statements the individual judgment and the representative element? We find in them without doubt the verbal form, expressive and representative, which is necessary to the concept for its concrete existence; but we do not find the statement of fact of which we are in search. Thus the proposed hypothesis will prove very ingenious and rich with all the advantages that we have stated; but since it does not appear to be confirmed by facts, we must, it seems, reject it, even at the risk of having to think out a better one, or, if we fail in this, of renouncing as desperate the attempt at a solution.

We must not, however, be in a hurry, but rather carefully recall the observation just made incidentally: that the verbal or literary form can throw into relief a moment of the judgment, while casting a shadow over the other and causing it to be forgotten, without thereby ever being able to suppress it. There seemed, we remember, to be no trace of concepts in perceptive judgments or judgments of fact, and especially in those forms of them which are called merely existential and in those called impersonal. Yet there can be no doubt that none of those judgments is ever possible without the concept as basis. An analysis which does not allow itself to be arrested by appearances and examines verbal forms as regards both what they express and what they leave to be understood (though this too is expressed in its own way) has discovered it. Similarly a definition does not exist in the air, as might appear from the examples given in treatises, in which the where and the when and the individual and the actual circumstances in which the definition has been given are omitted. In a definition thus presented, it would certainly be impossible to discover a representative element and an individual judgment. But the reason for this is that it has been mutilated and made abstract and indeterminate, to such an extent that it can be made determinate only by the meaning which he to whom it is communicated likes to attach to it. If, on the contrary, we look at the definition in its concrete reality, we shall always find in it when we examine it with care the representative element and the individual judgment.

For every definition is the answer to a question, the solution of a problem. Did we not ask questions and set problems, there would be no occasion for giving any definition. Why should we give them? What need could there be? The definition is an act of the spirit and every act of the spirit is conditioned. Without contradiction, there can be no agreement; without the shock of multiplicity there can be no unity; without the travail of doubt that calls for peace, there can be no affirmation of the true. Not only does the answer presuppose the question; but every answer implies a certain question. The answer must be in harmony with the question; otherwise, it would not be an answer, but the avoiding of an answer. In reply to a question of a certain kind, we should turn our deaf ear, as the saying is, or reply with a blow. This means that the nature of the question colours the answer and that a definition taken in its concreteness is determined by the problem which gives it rise. The definition varies with the problem.

But the question, the problem, the doubt is always individually conditioned. The doubt of the child is not that of the adult, the doubt of the uncultured man is not that of the man of culture, or the doubt of the novice that of the learned. Further, the doubt of an Italian is not that of a German, and the doubt of a German of the year 1800 is not that of a German of the year 1900. Indeed, the doubt formulated by an individual in a given moment, is not that formulated by the same individual a moment after. It is sometimes said by way of simplification, that the same question has been put by very many men, in various countries and at various times. But in the very act of saying this, we simplify. In reality, every question differs from every other question. Every definition, though it may seem to be the same and bounded with certain definite words, which seem to remain unchanged and constant, differs in reality from every other, because the words, even when they seem to be materially the same, are in effect different, according to the spiritual differences of those who pronounce them. Each of these is an individual, and on that account each finds himself in circumstances that are individually determined. "Virtue is the habit of moral actions," is a formula which can be pronounced a hundred times. But if it be seriously pronounced as a definition of virtue each of those hundred times, it answers to a hundred psychological situations, more or less different, and is in reality not one, but a hundred definitions.

It will be replied that the concept remains the same through all these definitions, like a man who changes his clothes a hundred times. But (setting aside the fact that even the man who changes his clothes a hundred times does not remain the same) the truth is that the relation between concept and definition is not the same as that between a man and his clothes. No concept exists save in so far as it is thought and enclosed in words, or in so far as it is defined. If the definitions vary, the concept itself varies. There are, certainly, variations of the concept, of that which is, par excellence, self-identical. These are the life of the concept, not of the representation. But the concept does not exist outside its life, and every thinking of it is a phase of this life, never its overcoming, since however far we go, it is never possible to swim outside water, or however high we climb, to fly outside air.

If we posit individual or historical conditions for every thinking of the concept, or of every definition (conditions which constitute the doubt, the problem, the question, to which the definition replies), we must admit that the definition, which contains the answer and affirms the concept, at the same time illumines by so doing those individual and historical conditions, that group of facts, from which it comes. It illumines, that is to say, qualifies it as what it is, grasps it as subject by giving it a predicate, and judges it. And since the fact is always individual, it forms an individual judgment. This means just that every definition is also an individual judgment. And this agrees with the hypothesis we framed: it is the assumption that seemed doubtful and now is proved. Truth of reason and truth of fact, analytic and synthetic judgments, judgments of definition and individual judgments, do not exist as distinct from one another: they are abstractions. The logical act is unique: it is the identity of definition and of individual judgment, the thinking of the pure concept.

Such a theory as this, although it goes against the ordinary way of thinking (though this, in its turn, suffers from its own contradictions), can be made convincing even to ordinary thought, when it is led to reflect upon what is implicitly understood in any judgments of definition that are pronounced. For example, definitions have always in view some particular adversary; they change according to time and circumstances, and those definitions that we felt constrained to give, at one stage of our mental development, we abandon at another, not because we judge them to be erroneous, but because they seem to us to be inopportune or commonplace. These and other facts, easy to observe, would not be possible, unless judgment of definite situations intervened to produce the change. And this judgment, though we may try to think of it as preceding or as following each one of those acts of definition, in reality neither precedes nor follows them, but on the contrary presents itself to the mind as contemporaneous, or rather coincident and identical with the act of definition. Every one who attains to a conceptual truth, every one, for instance, who achieves a definite doctrine of art or of morality, is immediately aware in himself that henceforth he knows more adequately not only the kingdom of ideas but also the kingdom of things. He realizes that as soon as an idea becomes more clear ipso facto it makes clearer the things out of whose vortex and tumult it comes. The star-gazer who forgets the earth, will be an astronomer, but certainly not a philosopher. In the act of thought, in the world of ideas, earth and sky are fused in one. Whoever looks well at the sky sees in it (miraculously!) the earth.

For the rest, the identity of definition and individual judgment, which we have demonstrated by various processes that are usually called negative, hypothetical, or inductive and based upon observation, is also confirmed by the process called deductive. For if the thinking of the concept be a degree superior to pure representation, and if in the degrees of the spirit the superior contain in itself the inferior, it is evident that representation as well as conceptual elements must always be found in the concept. But it is also evident that we can never find them distinct or distinguishable, but mingled in such a way that every distinction in them must be introduced solely by a deliberate act. The logical act is certainly spoken, represented, individualized. But when it is split up into concept and individual judgment, one of two things must happen: either we make an empirical and external distinction, of more or less; or two monstrosities are asserted: a non-individualized concept, which therefore does not exist, and a judgment not thought, and therefore non-existent as judgment, and existing, at the most, as pure intuition.

As our distinction between definitions and individual judgments was provisional, so also we must regard the consequence that we showed to issue from it--the partial justification of the doctrine of affirmations formally (logically) true and materially (individually) false. In reality, an error of fact implies a more or less inaccurate and erroneous definition, and an error of definition implies an error of fact. Thus this distinction also retains only an empirical meaning useful for the rough distinction of certain classes of errors from certain others. And resuming another previous observation, we must also say that, strictly speaking, it must be held impossible to err as to facts through the use of pure concepts, since the penetration of concepts, however great one may think it, is also always penetration of facts. This formula, too, cannot have anything but an empirical meaning, to indicate a certain type of errors of concept and of fact, which is popularly called the use of concepts and the use of facts, whereas it is the abuse of both.

In ordinary life it is customary to distinguish between those who cultivate ideas and those who cultivate facts, between Platonic and Aristotelian men. But if the Platonists seriously cultivate ideas, they cultivate facts and are also Aristotelians, and the Aristotelians cultivate ideas and are Platonists. Here, too, the difference is practical and extrinsic, not substantial; so much so that we are often astonished both at the singular clear-sightedness and penetration of the actual situation manifested by cultivators of ideas, and at the profound philosophy which we discover in the pretended cultivators of facts.

Hence the further consequence, that we must avoid the formula which speaks of the application of concepts, as, for instance, that in the individual judgment the concept is applied to the intuition. To say this, is, as a saying, innocuous, since like many others, it is metaphorical; but the doctrine implied in it, or that may be suggested by it (and that is indeed rarely separated from it), is altogether erroneous. The concept is not applied to the intuition, because it does not exist, even for a moment, outside of the intuition, and the judgment is a primitive act of the spirit, it is the logical spirit itself. If that formula has been successful, the reason for its success must usually be sought in the theory of the pseudoconcepts. Even these, in relation to the question which engages us now, and in so far as they are empirical concepts, are indistinguishable from individual pseudojudgments. To construct an empirical concept is equivalent to pronouncing that the objects a, b, c, d, etc., belong to a definite class. The two acts of the construction of the class and of effectual classification are only to be distinguished in an abstract manner. In conformity with this, we must now correct the theory that we have given above. But on the other hand, in so far as they are abstract concepts, they are void of all representative content, and therefore constituted outside of every individual judgment. They cannot of themselves give rise to such judgments. Before they can be united to them, we must apply them to individual judgments, elaborated into pseudojudgments, or made homogeneous by the process of classification. And in truth, 'not only the doctrine of application, but also the distinctions between analytic and synthetic judgments, between definitions and perceptions, between truths of reason and of fact, between necessity and contingency, find their confirmation in being referred to abstract concepts, as distinct from empirical. The same may be also said of the other doctrine, which distinguishes between affirmations that are formally true and materially false. Two griffins plus three griffins make five griffins. This is formally true, since it is true that two plus three equals five; but it is materially false, because griffins do not exist. Numbers and their laws would, for example, be truths of reason, necessary, a priori, in analytical judgments and pure definitions; truths derived from experience would be truths of fact, contingent, a posteriori, in synthetic and individual judgments. But though this conception may have currency in a field where, properly speaking, there is neither thought nor truth, in the field of truth and of thought the terms of both series are found in the corresponding terms of the other. Analysis apart from synthesis is as unthinkable as synthesis apart from analysis. In the same way we can empirically distinguish intention and action in the practical spirit. But in reality pure intention outside effectual action, is not even intention, because it is nothing. And an action beyond and without intention is nothing, for practical reality is the identity of intention and action. Here, too, theoretical spirit and practical spirit correspond at every point.

THE LOGICAL, A PRIORI SYNTHESIS

If analysis apart from synthesis, the a priori apart from the a posteriori, be inconceivable, and if synthesis apart from analysis, the a posteriori apart from the a priori, be equally inconceivable, then the true act of thought will be a synthetic analysis, an analytic synthesis, an a posteriori-a priori, or, if it be preferred, an a priori synthesis.

In this manner, the identity that we have established between the judgment of definition and the individual judgment comes to assume a name celebrated in the annals of modern philosophy. And by assuming it at this point, it is also able to affirm, since it has already demonstrated, the truth of the a priori synthesis, and to determine its exact content.

This is not the place to enter again into the objections which the Kantian concept elicited (indeed could not fail to elicit): objections which in Italy too gave rise to very acute attempts at confutation, and which ended in the partial absorption of that concept into the mental organism of its opponents. Suffice it to say that all the objections to the a priori synthesis, when thoroughly examined, seem to be derived, as was to be expected, from the upholders of the two one-sided doctrines which were surpassed by the synthesis. Thus the dogmatists or abstractionists believed the concept to be thinkable apart from or above the facts (simple analysis); the empiricists perceived only the representative element and claimed to obtain the concept from mere facts (simple synthesis). Both failed to explain perception, or the individual judgment. The former found it to arise from the external and almost accidental contact between pure concepts and given facts; the latter sometimes assumed it without explanation, sometimes confused it with pure intuition, if not altogether with sensibility and emotion. It can be said that whoever does not accept the a priori synthesis is outside the path of modern philosophy, indeed of all philosophy. Strive to find or to rediscover that path, unless you wish to incur the punishment of trifling with empiricism, of lying to yourself with mysticism, or of wandering in the void with scholasticism.

Instead of noting and of examining all the objections made to the a priori synthesis (which we have already substantially discussed in the development of our treatise), it will be of assistance to add some explanations, which will prevent false interpretations of that concept. These false interpretations sometimes (as often happens) mingle with the true even in the philosopher who discovered it, and confer force and authority upon several of the objections to the very reality of the a priori synthesis.

In the first place, in accordance with the formula given in Logic we must not speak of the a priori synthesis in general, but of the logical a priori synthesis. The a priori synthesis belongs to all the forms of the Spirit; indeed, the Spirit, considered universally, is nothing but a priori synthesis. The synthesis is operative in the æsthetic activity, not less than in the logical. For how could a poet create a pure intuition, if he did not proceed from a given fact, from some passionate moment of his own, conditioned and constituted in a particular way? Without something to intuite and to express could there ever be a poet? And would he be a poet, if he were to repeat that something mechanically, without transforming it into pure intuition? In his pure intuition, there is and there is not matter: not as brute matter, but as formed matter, or form. Thus it is said with reason that art is pure form, or that matter and form, content and form, in art are wholly one (a priori æsthetic synthesis). The a priori synthesis is not less operative in the practical activity than in the æsthetic and logical (that is, in the theoretic activity). It is impossible to will without material to will, or to will outside the given material. The practical man accepts actual conditions, and at the same time transforms them with his volitional act, creating something new, in which those conditions are and are not. They are, because the action achieved is in relation to them; they are not, because being new, it has transformed them. A priori synthesis, in general, then, means spiritual activity; not abstract but concrete spiritual activity, that is to say, the spirit itself, which is condition to itself and conditioned by itself. Thus the a priori synthesis, which is constituted by the coincidence or identity of the judgment of definition with the individual judgment, is not a priori synthesis in general, but logical a priori synthesis.

Having clearly established this point we are enabled to eliminate the confusion caused by the citation of certain spiritual formations, which do not correspond with that logical act, as examples of a priori synthetic judgments. Such for instance is the case of the famous example: "5 + 7 = 12," concerning which it was long disputed whether it were an a priori synthetic judgment or simply analytical; the synthetic element being found or not found in it, according to the point of view. The same thing has occurred in the case of other examples of a different nature, as in the judgment: "Snow is white." Here the dispute has been as to whether it be a priori synthetic, or simply synthetic. The truth is, on the contrary, that in neither of these two cases is there logical a priori synthesis, because the judgment "5 + 7= 12" is the expression of abstract or numerical concepts, and "snow is white" is the expression of empirical or classificatory concepts. This amounts to saying that both are products, not of a logical nature, nor of a theoretic nature, but, as we know, of an arbitrary or practical nature. For this reason, we have denied the very possibility of simply analytic or simply synthetic judgments in pure logic. On the other hand, both these kinds of spiritual formations are a priori syntheses, precisely because, being spiritual formations (though of a practical nature), they cannot fail to be produced by a creative (synthetic) act of the spirit. This explains why they sometimes appear as a priori syntheses, sometimes as something altogether different from the a priori synthesis. It suffices to add to the affirmative solution the adjective "practical" and to the negative the adjective "logical" to obtain agreement and truth.

A question of no less importance is whether the logical a priori synthesis (we might say, the a priori synthesis in general) is to be conceived as a synthesis of opposites; if, in other words, intuition and concept, matter and form, exist in the a priori synthesis in the same way as Being and not Being exist in true Being, which is Becoming; or as good and evil, true and false, and so on, exist in the special forms of the Spirit. The affirmative reply to this question finds, as is well known, its chief representative in the doctrine of Hegel. We do not wish to deny the great truth contained in this doctrine, in so far as by considering the a priori synthesis as a synthesis of opposites, it insists upon this essential point: that intuition and concept matter and form, do not exist in the logical act as two separable elements, merely externally connected. Outside the synthesis the subject does not exist as subject, and the predicate does not exist in any way. We must banish altogether the idea of the a priori synthesis, conceived as the reuniting of two facts existing separately. But having recognized the true side of the doctrine, we must correct the inexactness it contains. This arises from the confusion already criticized, by which the relation of opposition is unduly extended to distinct concepts, and the unity of effectual distinction is confused with the dialectic unity, which declares itself synthetic, only in so far as it makes war against an abstract distinction. The a priori synthesis is a unity of distinct concepts and not of opposites. That which is the material of the logical synthesis and which outside it has no logical character (is not subject), yet in another and inferior grade of the spirit is form and not matter, and is called intuition. Hence, there is distinction and unity together; form is not without matter; but the new matter was already form and, therefore, had its own matter. The logical a priori synthesis presupposes an æsthetic a priori synthesis. When considered in the logical sphere, this is certainly no longer a synthesis, but an indispensable element of the new synthesis. But outside the logical sphere, it possesses its own proper and peculiar autonomy. In the logical act intuition is blind without the concept, as the concept is void without the intuition. But pure intuition is not blind, because it has its own proper intuitive light. The concept contains the intuition, but the intuition transfigured. It is a synthesis, not of itself and its opposite, but of itself and its distinct concept which is indistinguishable from itself, save by an act of abstraction. In this way we satisfy the demand expressed in the formula of the synthesis as unity of opposites, and at the same time repress its tendency to usurpation. This tendency leads to the rejection of the concept of æsthetic synthesis, in favour of the concept of logical synthesis; it means the negation of art by philosophy, not only in the philosophical field (which would be just), but in the whole spiritual field. Extending itself from this to other usurpations and led on by the mirage of an ill-understood unity, it claims all the other syntheses for logical synthesis, and produces a great spiritual desert, in which logical thought itself at length dies of starvation.

The logical element, the pure concept or judgment of definition considered in itself, is given the name of category in the logical a priori synthesis. This term is nothing but the Greek equivalent for the word "predicate," which we have hitherto employed. It has been asked if the category is what used to be called an inniate idea. The answer must be that it is both that and also something profoundly different. The innate idea was indeed the category, but the category taken as possessed and thought prior to experience, according to the view that we have described as abstract or dogmatic. First the music, then the words; first definitions, then individual judgments or perceptions. The category, on the contrary, is neither the mother nor the first-born. It is born at one birth with the individual judgment, not as its twin, but as that judgment itself. From this aspect the category or the a priori is not the innate, but the perpetually new-born. From this we see the vanity of the question, whether the judgment or the concept be logically prior, not only in the relation, which we have already examined, of concept with verbal form (judgment of definition), but also in the relation of concept with individual judgment. We can say indifferently that to think is to conceive, or that to think is to judge, because the two formulæ are reduced to one. Equally vain is the question as to whether the categories precede the judgment or are obtained from it. They not only do not precede the judgment, but are not even obtained from it. We never issue forth from the judgment, as we never issue forth from reality and history.

A final explanation, not less important than those already given, concerns the importance of the logical a priori synthesis. This too has been diminished by the very man who discovered and defined that mental act, and even more by those who have repeated him, without being capable of reviving again the moment of discovery, and of understanding the intimate reasons that brought it about. When the concept was placed outside and prior to the representative element, and thought prior to and outside the world, so that the former was applied to the latter, the world was bound to appear to be something inferior to the concept, a degradation or an impure contact, which thought had to undergo. When, on the other hand, the representative element was placed outside and prior to the concept, the latter seemed to be inferior to it, almost as though it were an expedient for taking hold of the world, without truly being able to do so, and thus in its turn a degradation or defilement of it. Hence the sigh that we hear already in antiquity and more strongly in modern times: oh, if words (that is to say concepts, because concepts were called words) were not, how directly should we apprehend things! Oh, if thought were not, how vigorously should we embrace genuine reality!

In the first instance, reality is inferior to the concept, in the second the concept to reality; but in both alike, the two elements are always thought--as mutually external and truth as undiscoverable. Thus both these one-sided tendencies end in mystery. According to the former, the world is created by a God external to it, and will be disintegrated when it shall seem good to him, while the latter holds that the truth of things is plunged in impenetrable darkness. But granted the idea of the a priori synthesis, reality is not inferior to thought nor thought to reality, nor is the one external to the other. Representations are docile to thought, and thought conceals representations even less than the tenuous and scanty veil concealed the beauty of Alcina. The interpenetration of the two elements is perfect, and they constitute unity. The false belief in the externality and heterogeneity of reality and thought can only arise when for the pure concept and the a priori synthesis there are substitutes, either abstract concepts with their related analytic judgments, which are void of all representative content, or empirical concepts with their related and merely synthetic judgments, which are without logical form. The value of the a priori synthesis lies in its efficacy in putting an end to doubts as to the objectivity of thought and the cognizability of reality, and in making triumphant the power of thought over the real, which is the power of the real to know itself.

But this efficacy of the a priori synthesis remained obscure to its discoverer (and most obscure to his orthodox followers). To such an extent was this the case, that even to Kant the category did not seem to be immanent in the real and to be the thinking of its reality, but an extrinsic, though necessary adjunct, an inevitable alteration introduced into reality to make it thinkable, an anticipatory renunciation of the knowledge of genuine reality. Reality itself lay outside every category and judgment, a thing in itself. Even in Kant, the a priori synthesis was confused with simple analysis and with simple synthesis. These being manipulations of the real, extrinsic and not intrinsic, practical and not logical, useful, but without truth, so the a priori synthesis appeared to him to be an expedient to which man has recourse and cannot but have recourse, but which constitutes, not his power, but his weakness. Kant, too, dreamed of an ideal of knowledge, which was not a priori synthesis, but the intellectual intuition, the perfect adequacy of thought to reality, unattainable by the human spirit. He did not perceive that the intellectual intuition, which he longed for as an impossible ideal, was precisely the continuous operation of the a priori synthesis, nor did he think that what is necessary and insuperable cannot be defective. He never knew that the a priori synthesis, which he had discovered, is alone the true concept and the true judgment, and, therefore, operates in an altogether different way from simple analysis and simple synthesis, which are neither concept nor judgment; nor finally that if these last postulate a thing in itself, the a priori synthesis cannot postulate it, because it has it in itself.

To understand all the richness of the a priori synthesis is to pay honour to the genius of Emmanuel Kant; but it is also to recognize that the systematic construction of Kant showed itself altogether unequal to the great principle he laid down, but whose value he insufficiently estimated.