ency is
rightly regarded as the distinguishing characteristic of the Kantian
thinking, it must also be remembered that synthesis is everywhere preceded
by a mighty work of analysis, and that this still exerts its power even
after the adjustment is complete. Thus Kant became the energetic defender
of a qualitative view of the world in opposition to the quantitative view
of Leibnitz, for which antitheses (_e.g._, sensation and thought, feeling
and cognition, good and evil, duty and inclination) fade into mere
differences of degree.

[Footnote 1: The following have done especially valuable service in the
investigation of the development of Kant's doctrine: Paulsen (_Versuch
einer Entwickelungsgeschichte der Kantischen Erkenntnisstheorie_, 1875),
B. Erdmann, Vaihinger, and Windelband. Besides Hume and Leibnitz, Newton,
Locke, Shaftesbury, Rousseau, and Wolff exercised an important influence
on Kant.]

In the beginning of this chapter we have indicated how the new ideal of
knowledge, under whose banner Kant brought about a reform of philosophy,
grew out of the conflict between the rationalistic (dogmatic) and the
empirical (skeptical) systems. This combines the Baconian ideal of the
extension of knowledge with the Cartesian ideal of certainty in knowledge.
It is synthetic judgments alone which extend knowledge, while analytic
judgments are explicative merely.[1] _A priori_ judgments alone are
perfectly certain, absolutely universal, and necessarily valid; while _a
posteriori_ judgments are subjectively valid merely, lack necessity, and,
at best, yield only relative universality.[2] All analytic judgments are _a
priori_, all empirical or _a posteriori_ judgments are synthetic. Between
the two lies the object of Kant's search. Do _synthetic judgments a priori_
exist, and how are they possible?

[Footnote 1: "All bodies are extended" is an analytic judgment; "all bodies
possess weight," a synthetic judgment. The former explicates the concept
of the subject by bringing into notice an idea already contained in it and
belonging to the definition as a part thereof; it is based on the law of
contradiction: an unextended body is a self-contradictory concept. The
latter, on the contrary, goes beyond the concept of the subject and adds
a predicate which had not been thought therein. It is experience which
teaches us that weight is joined to matter, a fact which cannot be derived
from the concept of matter. Almost all mathematical pri