Note 8 — THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED

This, if the translation is correct, is proving a great deal more than Leibnitz’s restriction of Locke’s doctrine requires, and is, as it appears to me, the great stumbling block in Kant’s Philosophy. It is quite enough to shew, not that there are certain notions à priori or independent of sensation, but certain faculties independent of the senses or sensible objects, which are the intellect itself, and necessary, after the objects are given, to form ideas of them. That is to say, ideas are the result of the action of objects on such and such faculties of the mind. Kant’s notions à priori, seem little better than the innate ideas of the schools, or the Platonic ideas or forms, which are to me the forms of nothing. The sole and simple question is, whether there are not certain intellectual faculties distinct from the senses, which exist before any ideas can be formed, as it is not denied by any one, that there are certain sensitive faculties which must exist before any sensations can be received. The one supposition no more implies innate ideas, than the other implies innate sensations.