peals had not been despised. Each of the opposing schools had
given variations on a definite theme, and whenever timid attempts had been
made to bring the two melodies into harmony they had met with no approval.
The proceedings thus far had at least made it evident to the unbiased
hearer that each of the two parties made extravagant claims, and, in the
end, fell into self-contradiction. If the claim of empiricism is true, that
all our concepts arise from perception, then not only the science of the
suprasensible, which it denies, but also the science of the objects of
experience, about which it concerns itself, is impossible. For perception
informs us concerning single cases merely, it can never comprehend all
cases, it yields no necessary and universal truth; but knowledge which is
not apodictically valid for every reasoning being and for all cases is
not worthy the name. The very reasons which were intended to prove the
possibility of knowledge give a direct inference to its impossibility. The
empirical philosophy destroys itself, ending with Hume in skepticism and
probabilism. Rationalism is overtaken by a different, and yet an analogous
fate--it breaks up into a popular eclecticism. It believes that it
has discovered an infallible criterion of truth in the clearness and
distinctness of ideas, and a sure example for philosophical method in the
method of mathematics. In both points it is wrong. The criterion of
truth is insufficient, for Spinoza and Leibnitz built up their opposing
theories--the pantheism of the one and the monadology of the other--from
equally clear and distinct conceptions; tried by this standard
individualism is just as true as pantheism. Mathematics, again, does not
owe its unquestioned acceptance and cogent force to the clearness and
distinctness of its conceptions, but to the fact that these are capable
of construction in intuition. The distinction between mathematics and
metaphysics was overlooked, namely, that mathematical thought can transform
its conceptions into intuitions, can generate its objects or sensuously
present them, which philosophical thought is not in a position to do. The
objects of the latter must be given to it, and to the human mind they are
given in no other way than through sensuous intuition. Metaphysics seeks
to be a science of the real, but it is impossible to conjure being out of
thought; reality cannot be proved from concepts, it can only be felt. In
making the unperceiv