n the most absolute of sciences.
Geometry is the _science_ of space: therefore, in any _philosophy_ of
space, geometry is entitled to be peculiarly considered, and used as a
court of appeal. Geometry has these two further claims to
distinction--that, 1st, It is the most perfect of the sciences, so far
as it has gone; and, 2ndly, That it has gone the farthest. A
philosophy of space, which does not consider and does not reconcile to
its own doctrines the facts of geometry, which, in the two points of
beauty and of vast extent, is more like a work of nature than of man,
is, _prima facie_, of no value. A philosophy of space _might_ be
false, which should harmonise with the facts of geometry--it _must_ be
false, if it contradict them. Of Kant's philosophy it is a capital
praise, that its very opening section--that section which treats the
question of space, not only quadrates with the facts of geometry, but
also, by the _subjective_ character which it attributes to space, is
the very first philosophic scheme which explains and accounts for the
cogency of geometrical evidence.

These are the two primary merits of the transcendental theory--1st,
Its harmony with mathematics, and the fact of having first, by its
doctrine of space, applied philosophy to the nature of geometrical
evidence; 2ndly, That it has filled up, by means of its doctrine of
categories, the great _hiatus_ in all schemes of the human
understanding from Plato downwards. All the rest, with a reserve as to
the part which concerns the _practical_ reason (or will), is of more
questionable value, and leads to manifold disputes. But I contend,
that, had transcendentalism done no other service than that of laying
a foundation, sought but not found for ages, to the human
understanding--namely, by showing an intelligible genesis to certain
large and indispensable ideas--it would have claimed the gratitude of
all profound inquiries. To a reader still disposed to undervalue
Kant's service in this respect, I put one parting question--Wherefore
he values Locke? What has _he_ done, even if value is allowed in full
to his pretensions? Has the reader asked himself _that_? He gave a
_negative_ solution at the most. He told his reader that certain
disputed ideas were _not_ deduced thus and thus. Kant, on the other
hand, has given him at the least a _positive_ solution. He teaches
him, in the profoundest revelation, by a discovery in the most
absolute sense on record, and the m