other ideas including the same element of necessity, and,
therefore, equally disowning the parentage assigned by Locke? Upon
investigation, he found that there were: he found that there were
eleven others in exactly the same circumstances. The entire twelve he
denominated categories; and the mode by which he ascertained their
number--that there were so many and no more--is of itself so
remarkable as to merit notice in the most superficial sketch. But, in
fact, this one explanation will put the reader in possession of Kant's
system, so far as he could understand it without an express and
toilsome study. With this explanation, therefore, of the famous
categories, I shall close my slight sketch of the system. Has the
reader ever considered the meaning of the term _Category_--a term so
ancient and so venerable from its connection with the most domineering
philosophy that has yet appeared amongst men? The doctrine of the
Categories (or, in its Roman appellation, of the _Predicaments_), is
one of the few wrecks from the Peripatetic philosophy which still
survives as a doctrine taught by public authority in the most ancient
academic institutions of Europe. It continues to form a section in the
code of public instruction; and perhaps under favour of a pure
accident. For though, strictly speaking, a _metaphysical_ speculation,
it has always been prefixed as a sort of preface to the _Organon_ (or
_logical_ treatises) of Aristotle, and has thus accidentally shared in
the immortality conceded to that most perfect of human works. Far
enough were the Categories from meriting such distinction. Kant was
well aware of this: he was aware that the Aristotelian Categories were
a useless piece of scholastic lumber: unsound in their first
conception; and, though illustrated through long centuries by the
schoolmen, and by still earlier Grecian philosophers, never in any one
known instance turned to a profitable account. Why, then, being aware
that even in idea they were false, besides being practically
unsuitable, did Kant adopt or borrow a name laden with this
superfetation of reproach--all that is false in theory superadded to
all that is useless in practice? He did so for a remarkable reason: he
felt, according to his own explanation, that Aristotle had been
_groping_ [the German word expressive of his blind procedure is
_herumtappen_]--groping in the dark, but under a semi-conscious
instinct of truth. Here is a most remarkable case or sit