The series is and remains a simple one; and you have not at all explained what was to be explained. You were to prove the connection between Being and Representation; but this you do not, nor can you do it; for your principle contains merely the ground of a Being, and not of a Representation, totally opposed to Being. You take an immense leap into a world, totally removed from your principle. This leap they seek to hide in various ways. Rigorously—and this is the course of consistent dogmatism, which thus becomes materialism;—the soul is to them no Thing at all, and indeed nothing at all, but merely a production, the result of the reciprocal action of Things amongst themselves. But this reciprocal action produces merely a change in the Things, and by no means anything apart from the Things, unless you add an observing intelligence. The similes which they adduce to make their system comprehensible, for instance, that of the harmony resulting from sounds of different instruments, make its irrationality only more apparent. For the harmony is not in the instruments, but merely in the mind of the hearer, who combines within himself the manifold into One; and unless you have such a hearer there is no harmony at all. But who can prevent Dogmatism from assuming the Soul as one of the Things, _per se_? The soul would thus belong to what it has postulated for the solution of its problem, and, indeed, would thereby be made the category of cause and effect applicable to the Soul and the Things—materialism only permitting a reciprocal action of the Things amongst themselves—and thoughts might now be produced. To make the Unthinkable thinkable, Dogmatism has, indeed, attempted to presuppose Thing or the Soul, or both, in such a manner, that the effect of the Thing was to produce a representation. The Thing, as influencing the Soul, is to be such, as to make its influences representations; GOD, for instance, in Berkley’s system, was such a thing. (His system is dogmatic, not idealistic.) But this does not better matters; we understand only mechanical effects, and it is impossible for us to understand any other kind of effects. Hence, that presupposition contains merely words, but there is no sense in it. Or the soul is to be of such a nature that every effect upon the Soul turns into a representation. But this also we find it impossible to understand.