My reviewer speaks like a man who is conscious of important and superior
insight which he keeps hidden, for I am aware of nothing recent with respect to meta-
physics that could justify his tone. But he should not withhold his discoveries from the
world, for there are doubtless many who, like myself, have not been able to find in all
the fine things that have for long past been written in this department anything that has
advanced the science by so much as a finger’s breadth; we find indeed the giving a new
point to definitions, the supplying of lame proofs with new crutches, the adding to the
crazy-quilt of metaphysics fresh patches or changing its pattern. But all this is not what
the world requires. The world is tired of metaphysical assertions; it wants [to know] the
possibility of this science, the sources from which certainty therein can be derived, and
certain criteria by which it may distinguish the dialectical illusion of pure reason from
truth. To this the critic seems to possess a key, otherwise he would never have spoken
out in such a high tone.
But I am inclined to suspect that no such requirement of the science has ever
entered his thoughts, for in that case he would have directed his judgment to this point,
and even a mistaken attempt in such an important matter would have won his respect. If
that be the case, we are once more good friends. He may penetrate as deeply as he likes
into his metaphysics, without any one hindering him; only as concerns that which lies out-
side metaphysics, its sources, which are to be found in reason, he cannot form a judgment.
That my suspicion is not without foundation is proved by the fact that he does not mention
a word about the possibility of synthetic knowledge a priori,the special problem upon the
solution of which the fate of metaphysics wholly rests and upon which my Critique(as
well as the present Prolegomena) entirely hinges. The idealism he encountered and which
he hung upon was only taken up in the doctrine as the sole means of solving the above
problem (although it received its confirmation on other grounds), and hence he must have
shown either that the above problem does not possess the importance I attribute to it (even
in these Prolegomena) or that, by my conception of appearances, it is either not solved at
all or can be better solved in another way; but I do not find a word of this in the criticism.
The reviewer, then, understands nothing of my work and possibly also nothing of the
spirit and essential nature of metaphysics itself; and it is not, what I would rather assume,
the hurry of a reviewer to finish his review, incensed at the labor of plodding through so
many obstacles, that threw an unfavorable shadow over the work lying before him and
made its fundamental features unrecognizable.
There is a good deal to be done before a learned journal, it matters not with what
care its writers may be selected, can maintain its otherwise well-merited reputation in
the field of metaphysics as elsewhere. Other sciences and branches of knowledge have
their standard. Mathematics has it in itself, history and theology in profane or sacred
books, natural science and the art of medicine in mathematics and experience, jurispru-
dence in law books, and even matters of taste in the examples of the ancients. But for
the judgment of the thing called metaphysics, the standard has yet to be found. I have
made an attempt to determine it, as well as its use. What is to be done, then, until it be
found when works of this kind have to be judged of? If they are of a dogmatic charac-
ter, one may do what one likes; no one will play the master over others here for long
before someone else appears to deal with him in the same manner. If, however, they are
critical in character, not indeed with reference to other works but to reason itself, so that
the standard of judgment cannot be assumed but has first of all to be sought for, then,
though objection and blame may indeed be permitted, yet a certain degree of leniency is
indispensable, since the need is common to us all and the lack of the necessary insight
makes the high-handed attitude of judge unwarranted.
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