Produced by Meredith Bach, lizardcry, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Every attempt has been made to replicate the original as printed. Some typographical errors have been corrected; a list follows the text. The footnotes follow the text. Index Contents (etext transcriber's note) A COMMENTARY TO KANT’S ‘CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON’ BY NORMAN KEMP SMITH, D.PHIL. McCOSH PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY AUTHOR OF ‘STUDIES IN THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHY’ MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON 1918 COPYRIGHT TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT ADAMSON WISE IN COUNSEL, IN FRIENDSHIP UNFAILING GRATEFULLY DEDICATED PREFACE The _Critique of Pure Reason_ is more obscure and difficult than even a metaphysical treatise has any right to be. The difficulties are not merely due to defects of exposition; they multiply rather than diminish upon detailed study; and, as I shall endeavour to show in this _Commentary_, are traceable to two main causes, the composite nature of the text, written at various dates throughout the period 1772-1780, and the conflicting tendencies of Kant’s own thinking. The _Commentary_ is both expository and critical; and in exposition no less than in criticism I have sought to subordinate the treatment of textual questions and of minor issues to the systematic discussion of the central problems. Full use is made of the various selections from Kant’s private papers that have appeared, at intervals, since the publication of his _Lectures on Metaphysics_ in 1821. Their significance has not hitherto been generally recognised in English books upon Kant. They seem to me to be of capital importance for the right understanding of the _Critique_.