798 IMMANUELKANT
say that things as objects of our senses existing outside us are given, but we know nothing
of what they may be in themselves, knowing only their appearances, that is, the represen-
tations which they cause in us by affecting our senses. Consequently I grant by all means
that there are bodies without us, that is, things which, though quite unknown to us as to
what they are in themselves, we yet know by the representations which their influence on
our sensibility procures us. These representations we call “bodies,” a term signifying
merely the appearance of the thing which is unknown to us, but not therefore less actual.
Can this be termed idealism? It is the very contrary.
Long before Locke’s time, but assuredly since him, it has been generally assumed
and granted without detriment to the actual existence of external things that many of
their predicates may be said to belong, not to the things in themselves, but to their
appearances, and to have no proper existence outside our representation. Heat, color, and
taste, for instance, are of this kind. Now, if I go farther and, for weighty reasons, rank as
mere appearances the remaining qualities of bodies also, which are called primary—
such as extension, place, and, in general, space, with all that which belongs to it (impen-
etrability or materiality, shape, etc.)—no one in the least can adduce the reason of its
being inadmissible. As little as the man who admits colors not to be properties of the
object in itself, but only as modifications of the sense of sight, should on that account be
called an idealist, so little can my thesis be named idealistic merely because I find that
more, nay,all the properties which constitute the intuition of a body belong merely to its
appearance.
The existence of the thing that appears is thereby not destroyed, as in genuine ide-
alism, but it is only shown that we cannot possibly know it by the senses as it is in itself.
I should be glad to know what my assertions must be in order to avoid all ideal-
ism. Undoubtedly, I should say that the representation of space is not only perfectly
conformable to the relation which our sensibility has to objects—that I have said—but
that it is quite similar to the object—an assertion in which I can find as little meaning as
if I said that the sensation of red has a similarity to the property of cinnabar which
excites this sensation in me.
REMARKIII
Hence we may at once dismiss an easily foreseen but futile objection, “that by
admitting the ideality of space and of time the whole sensible world would be turned
into mere sham.” After all philosophical insight into the nature of sensuous cognition
was spoiled by making the sensibility merely a confused mode of representation,
according to which we still know things as they are, but without being able to reduce
everything in this our representation to a clear consciousness, I proved that sensibility
consists, not in this logical distinction of clearness and obscurity, but in the genetic one
of the origin of knowledge itself. For sensuous perception represents things not at all as
they are, but only the mode in which they affect our senses; and consequently by sensu-
ous perception appearances only, and not things themselves, are given to the under-
standing for reflection. After this necessary correction an objection rises from an
unpardonable and almost intentional misconception, as if my doctrine turned all the
things of the world of sense into mere illusion.
When an appearance is given us, we are still quite free as to how we should judge
the matter. The appearance depends upon the senses, but the judgment upon the under-
standing; and the only question is whether in the determination of the object there is truth