CHAPTER XII THE ANALOGIES OF EXPERIENCE 268 CHAPTER XIII THE POSTULATES OF EMPIRICAL THOUGHT 308 NOTE THE REFUTATION OF IDEALISM 319 REFERENCES A = First edition of the _Critique of Pure Reason_. B = Second edition of the _Critique of Pure Reason_. Prol. = Kant's _Prolegomena to any future Metaphysic_. M = Meiklejohn's Translation of the _Critique of Pure Reason_. Mah. = Mahaffy. Translation of Kant's _Prolegomena to any future Metaphysic_. (The pages referred to are those of the first edition; these are also to be found in the text of the second edition.) Caird = Caird's _Critical Philosophy of Kant_. CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM OF THE _CRITIQUE_ The problem of the _Critique_ may be stated in outline and approximately in Kant's own words as follows. Human reason is called upon to consider certain questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer. These questions relate to God, freedom of the will, and immortality. And the name for the subject which has to deal with these questions is metaphysics. At one time metaphysics was regarded as the queen of all the sciences, and the importance of its aim justified the title. At first the subject, propounding as it did a dogmatic system, exercised a despotic sway. But its subsequent failure brought it into disrepute. It has constantly been compelled to retrace its steps; there has been fundamental disagreement among philosophers, and no philosopher has successfully refuted his critics. Consequently the current attitude to the subject is one of weariness and indifference. Yet humanity cannot really be indifferent to such problems; even those who profess indifference inevitably make metaphysical assertions; and the current attitude is a sign not of levity but of a refusal to put up with the illusory knowledge offered by contemporary philosophy. Now the objects of metaphysics, God, freedom, and immortality, are not objects of experience in the sense in which a tree or a stone is an object of experience. Hence our views about them cannot be due to experience; they must somehow be apprehended by pure reason, i. e. by thinking and without appeal to experience. Moreover, it is in fact by thinking that men have always tried to solve the problems concerning God, freedom, and immortality. What, then, is the cause of the unsatisfactory treatment of these problems and men's consequent indifference? It must, in some way, lie in a failure to attain the sure scientific method, and really consists in the neglect of an inquiry which should be a preliminary to all others in metaphysics. Men ought to have begun with a critical investigation of pure reason itself. Reason should have examined its own nature, to ascertain in general the extent to which it is capable of attaining knowledge