of what Kant calls _dogmatism_, and the question of material objectivity, which may be left open without compromising the fundamental basis of things. How, then, can our author appear to assign the victory to criticism while in reality depriving it of its chief support by restoring to the _ego_ the immediate consciousness of itself as a being, one, active, permanent, and continuous? Kant may have played this game, because, in effect, outside of criticism, he only admits moral reasons for reinstating dogmatism. But although our author follows him too on that ground, he nevertheless enters in point of fact upon an entirely different path when he invokes immediate consciousness as a guarantee of the existence and activity of the mind. These are not moral and practical, but metaphysical reasons. Metaphysic, then, independently of morality, has its own proper foundation, which, far from being affected by criticism, is the very foundation of criticism itself. This foundation once admitted, are we entitled to declare metaphysic no science? We hold that we are not. Doubtless, if by science be meant an absolutely adequate knowledge of the object, such as mathematics affords, metaphysic cannot pretend to such knowledge; but we have here only a question of degree. The perfection of a science is not the same thing as its existence. A science is what it is by reason of the difficulties its objects present, and the imperfections of its method; but it is science none the less if it possesses a given object and a solid foundation. Now, such a foundation is admitted by our author when he admits the intuition of the _ego_ by itself; and hence it is no longer a mere question of words to refuse the name of science to the series of deductions that may be drawn from a principle which has been admitted valid.