Note 26 — REPLIES TO CRITICISMS.

Instead of describing me as mis­un­der­stand­ing Kant on this point, Dr. Hodgson should have described Kant as having, in successive sentences, so changed the meanings of the words he uses, as to make either interpretation possible. At the outset of his Critique of Pure Reason, he says:—“The effect of an object upon the faculty of rep­re­sen­ta­tion, so far as we are affected by the said object, is sensation. That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of sensation, is called an empirical intuition. The undetermined object of an empirical intuition, is called phænomenon. That which in the phænomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its matter;” [here, remembering the definition just given of phenomenon, objective existence is manifestly referred to] “but that which effects that the content of the phænomenon can be arranged under certain relations, I call its form” [so that form, as here applied, refers to objective existence]. “But that in which our sensations are merely arranged, and by which they are susceptible of assuming a certain form, cannot be itself sensation.” [In which sentence the word form obviously refers to subjective existence.] At the outset, the ‘phenomenon’ and the ‘sensation’ are distinguished as objective and subjective respectively; and then, in the closing sentences, the form is spoken of in connexion first with the one and then with the other, as though they were the same.