For these terms do in truth include all the difficulties, which the
human mind can propose for solution. Taking them therefore in mass, and
unexamined, it required only a decent apprenticeship in logic, to draw
forth their contents in all forms and colours, as the professors of
legerdemain at our village fairs pull out ribbon after ribbon from their
mouths. And not more difficult is it to reduce them back again to their
different genera. But though this analysis is highly useful in rendering
our knowledge more distinct, it does not really add to it. It does not
increase, though it gives us a greater mastery over, the wealth which
we before possessed. For forensic purposes, for all the established
professions of society, this is sufficient. But for philosophy in its
highest sense as the science of ultimate truths, and therefore scientia
scientiarum, this mere analysis of terms is preparative only, though as
a preparative discipline indispensable.
Still less dare a favourable perusal be anticipated from the proselytes
of that compendious philosophy, which talking of mind but thinking
of brick and mortar, or other images equally abstracted from body,
contrives a theory of spirit by nicknaming matter, and in a few hours
can qualify its dullest disciples to explain the omne scibile by
reducing all things to impressions, ideas, and sensations.
But it is time to tell the truth; though it requires some courage to
avow it in an age and country, in which disquisitions on all subjects,
not privileged to adopt technical terms or scientific symbols, must be
addressed to the Public. I say then, that it is neither possible nor
necessary for all men, nor for many, to be philosophers. There is a
philosophic (and inasmuch as it is actualized by an effort of freedom,
an artificial) consciousness, which lies beneath or (as it were) behind
the spontaneous consciousness natural to all reflecting beings. As the
elder Romans distinguished their northern provinces into Cis-Alpine and
Trans-Alpine, so may we divide all the objects of human knowledge into
those on this side, and those on the other side of the spontaneous
consciousness; citra et trans conscientiam communem. The latter is
exclusively the domain of pure philosophy, which is therefore properly
entitled transcendental, in order to discriminate it at once, both from
mere reflection and representation on the one hand, and on the other
from those flights of lawless speculation which, abandoned by all
distinct consciousness, because transgressing the bounds and purposes of
our intellectual faculties, are justly condemned, as transcendent [46].
The first range of hills, that encircles the scanty vale of human life,
is the horizon for the majority of its inhabitants. On its ridges the
common sun is born and departs. From them the stars rise, and touching
them they vanish. By the many, even this range, the natural limit and
bulwark of the vale, is but imperfectly known. Its higher ascents are
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