In appreciating the services of Kant to philosophy we must guard ourselves against being influenced by the extravagant panegyrics of his countrymen, whose passion for square circles he so generously gratifies. Still, after every deduction for mere Laputian pedantry has been made, the balance of fruitful suggestion remains vast. (i.) The antithesis of object and subject, although not counted among the categories of his _Critique_, has remained a prime category of thought ever since. (ii.) The idea of a necessary limit to human knowledge, given by the very theory of that knowledge, as distinguished from the Scepticism of the Greeks--in other words, what we now call Agnosticism--may not be final, but it still remains to be dealt with. (iii.) The possibility of reducing _à priori_ knowledge to a form of unconscious experience has put an end to dogmatic metaphysics. (iv.) The problems of Time and Space have taken a central place in speculation; it has been {100} shown--what Hume did not see--that Causation has the certainty of a mathematical axiom; and it has been made highly probable that all these difficulties may find their solution in a larger interpretation of experience. (v.) Morality has been definitely dissociated from the appeal to selfish interests, whether in this life or in another. We have now to trace, within the limits prescribed by the nature of this work, the development of philosophy under Kant's German successors. * * * * * {101} CHAPTER IV. THE GERMAN IDEALISTS FICHTE, SCHELLING, HEGEL, SCHOPENHAUER, HERBART.