Let us leave the poetical part to the explanation of the schools, and see if what it involves be worth as much, to say the least, as what Kant advanced when, combating sensism, he distinguished between the pure understanding and sensible intuitions. CHAPTER VIII. KANT AND THE ARISTOTELIANS. 51. Lest I be accused of levity in comparing Kant's philosophy with that of the schools, in what relates to the distinction between the sensitive and intellectual faculties, I shall give a rapid examination of this philosopher's doctrine so far as the present matter is concerned. Since the German philosopher is in the habit of expressing himself with great obscurity, and of using an obsolete language liable to different interpretations, I shall insert his own words, so that the reader may judge for himself, and rectify any inaccuracies into which I may fall, in comparing Kant's doctrine with that of the Aristotelians. "In whatever manner," says Kant, "and by whatever means a cognition may be referred to objects, that which makes the cognition refer immediately to things, and to which all thought is a means, is _intuition_. This intuition exists only inasmuch as the object is given us, which is not possible, at least for us men, except so far as it affects the mind in some way. The capacity of receiving impressions by the manner in which objects affect us is called _sensibility_. By means of sensibility objects are given to us: it alone supplies us with _intuitions_: but they are thought by the understanding, and from it arise _conceptions_. All thought must ultimately be referred, either directly, or indirectly by means of certain signs, to intuitions, and consequently to sensibility, since no object can be given to us in any other. "The action of an object upon the representative faculty, so far as we are affected by it, is _sensation_. The intuition, which is referred to an object by means of sensation, is called _empirical_. The immediate object of an empirical intuition is called a _phenomenon_."[4] [4] _Transcendental Æsthetics_, § 1. The distinction between the faculty of feeling and that of conceiving is fundamental in Kant's system: and we see that he gives it a hasty exposition before beginning his investigations on _Æsthetics_ or the theory of sensibility. Further on, in treating of the operations of the understanding, he has more fully developed his doctrine: and by the emphasis he puts upon it, it would seem evident that he regarded it as of high importance, and perhaps as a discovery of a region entirely unknown to the philosophical world. Thus he speaks of it in his _Transcendental Logic_: