ies the indefinite data of sensation were thought to be organised
into a cognisable system.

A rapid advance of speculation along the lines signalised by Kant took
place after his work was published, and for many years this movement was
regarded by a large part of the speculative world as the most hopeful
and progressive of philosophic efforts, and by its own votaries as
placing them in a position of superiority to all other schools of
thought. The thoroughness of their studies and introspective methods to
some extent justified, or at least excused the arrogance of their
pretensions.

But it is to-day almost unnecessary even to criticise this Philosophy.

From the first it was foredoomed to failure, and had no prospect of
succeeding where Plato--equipped with armour from the same forge--had
already failed.

* * * * *

Kantianism like Platonism failed because it still left the sensible
unaccounted for. Not only did it fail to tell us whence came these
sensations which, however transitory and unreal, constantly saluted our
consciousness and largely constituted our Experience; it failed also to
show us how they could be brought into relation with the faculty of
Knowledge.

Finding its elemental forms in the structure of the organ of Knowledge,
it failed to tell us how we ever managed by means of these to get beyond
our own subjective states, or how we ever came to think that there was a
World outside of the individual consciousness, by the categories of
which, according to them, our cognitions of such a World were called
into being. For if Reality were unknowable except by and through the
categories, then our Knowledge of Reality was the creature of our own
mental activity, and we must still remain unable to understand why we
should suppose that we had got beyond ourselves.

These defects of Kantianism were early recognised by Schopenhauer, who
also appears to have realised that what was wanted was another and a new
key to unlock the gateway of Knowledge.

Knowledge was in essence an affirmation or series of affirmations about
a real World distinct from the Knower. It was surely now obvious that
the warrant for such affirmations and the source of their validity must
come from somewhere beyond the cognitive faculty itself. The source upon
which men again and again have seemed to fall back is Sensation; but
Sensation being transitory and dependent for its existence upon its
being felt