In insisting, as he does, upon the absurd practical results[15] that would follow from the adoption of Hume’s sceptical conclusions, he is merely exploiting popular prejudice in the philosophical arena. That, however, may be forgiven him, if, as would seem to be the case, the quotations which he gives verbatim from Hume’s _Treatise_ really first revealed to Kant the scope and innermost meaning of Hume’s analysis of the causal problem. The evidence in support of this contention is entirely circumstantial. The German translation of Beattie’s _Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth_ was published at Easter 1772, _i.e._ in the year in which Kant, in the process of his own independent development, came, as is shown by his famous letter to Herz,[16] to realise the mysterious, problematic character of _a priori_ knowledge _of the independently real_. He was then, however, still entirely unconscious of the deeper problem which at once emerges upon recognition that _a priori_ principles, quite apart from all question of their objective validity, are synthetic in form. We know that Kant was acquainted with Beattie’s work; for he twice refers to Beattie’s criticism of Hume.[17] What more probable than that he read the translation in the year of its publication, or at least at some time not very long subsequent to the date of the letter to Herz? The passages which Beattie quotes from the _Treatise_ are exactly those that were necessary to reveal the full scope of Hume’s revolutionary teaching in respect to the general principle of causality. There seems, indeed, little doubt that this must have been the channel through which Hume’s influence chiefly acted. Thus at last, by a circuitous path, through the quotations of an adversary, Hume awakened philosophy from its dogmatic slumber,[18] and won for his argument that appreciation which despite its cogency it had for thirty years so vainly demanded.