f a vast hiatus in the received
philosophies--the idea of _cause_, which had been thrown as an apple
of discord amongst the schools, by Hume. How did Kant deduce this?
Simply thus: it is a doctrine of universal logic, that there are three
varieties of syllogism--viz. 1st, Categoric, or directly declarative
[_A is B_]; 2nd, Hypothetic, or conditionally declarative [_If C is D,
then A is B_]; 3rd, Disjunctive, or declarative, by means of a choice
which exhausts the possible cases [_A is either B, or C, or D; but
not C or D; ergo B_]. Now, the idea of _causation_, or, in Kant's
language, the category of Cause and Effect, is deduced immediately,
and most naturally, as the reader will acknowledge on examination,
from the 2nd or hypothetic form of syllogism, when the relation of
dependency is the same as in the idea of causation, and the
_necessary_ connection a direct type of that which takes place between
a cause and its effect.

Thus, then, without going one step further, the reader will find
grounds enough for reflection and for reverence towards Kant in these
two great results: 1st, That an order of ideas has been established,
which all deep philosophy has demanded, even when it could not make
good its claim. This postulate is fulfilled. 2ndly, The postulate is
fulfilled without mysticism or Platonic reveries. Ideas, however
indispensable to human needs, and even to the connection of our
thoughts, which came to us from nobody knew whence, must for ever have
been suspicious; and, as in the memorable instance cited from Hume,
must have been liable for ever to a question of validity. But, deduced
as they now are from a matrix within our own minds, they cannot
reasonably fear any assaults of scepticism.

Here I shall stop. A reader new to these inquiries may think all this
a trifle. But he who reflects a little, will see that, even thus far,
and going no step beyond this point, the Kantian doctrine of the
Categories answers a standing question hanging aloof as a challenge to
human philosophy, fills up a _lacuna_ pointed out from the era of
Plato. It solves a problem which has startled and perplexed every age:
viz. this--that man is in possession, nay, in the hourly exercise, of
ideas larger than he can show any title to. And in another way, the
reader may measure the extent of this doctrine, by reflecting that,
even so far as now stated, it is precisely coextensive with the famous
scheme of Locke. For what is the capital t