This is not the place to discuss at length the value of Kant’s contribution to philosophy.[3] There is something terrifying in the prodigious length at which it seems possible for men to discuss it.  Kant called his doctrine “Criticism,” because it undertook to establish the nature and limits of our knowledge.  By some he has been hailed as a great enlightener, and by others he has been accused of being as dogmatic in his assumptions as those whom he disapproved.

But one thing he certainly has accomplished.  He has made the words “phenomena” and “noumena” familiar to us all, and he has induced a vast number of men to accept it as established fact that it is not worth while to try to extend our knowledge beyond phenomena.  One sees his influence in the writings of men who differ most widely from one another.

[1] “Essay,” Book IV, Chapter XI, section 7.

[2] “An Inquiry into the Human Mind,” Chapter V, section 5.

[3] The reader will find a criticism of the Critical Philosophy in Chapter XV.

CHAPTER XIII

REALISM AND IDEALISM

52.  REALISM.—­The plain man is a realist.  That is to say, he believes in a world which is not to be identified with his own ideas or those of any other mind.  At the same time, as we have seen (section 12), the distinction between the mind and the world is by no means clear to him.  It is not difficult, by judicious questioning, to set his feet upon the slippery descent that shoots a man into idealism.

The vague realism of the plain man may be called Naive or Unreflective Realism.  It has been called by some Natural Realism, but the latter term is an unfortunate one.  It is, of course, natural for the unreflective man to be unreflective, but, on the other hand, it is also natural for the reflective man to be reflective.  Besides, in dubbing any doctrine “natural,” we are apt to assume that doctrines contrasted with it may properly be called “unnatural” or “artificial.”  It is an ancient rhetorical device, to obtain sympathy for a cause in which one may happen to be interested by giving it a taking name; but it is a device frowned upon by logic and by good sense.

One kind of realism is, then, naive realism.  It is the position from which we all set out, when we begin to reflect upon the system of things.  It is the position to which some try to come back, when their reflections appear to be leading them into strange or unwelcome paths.

We have seen how Thomas Reid (section 50) recoiled from the conclusions to which the reasonings of the philosophers had brought him, and tried to return to the position of the plain man.  The attempt was a failure, and was necessarily a failure, for Reid tried to come back to the position of the plain man and still be a philosopher.  He tried to live in a cloud and, nevertheless, to see clearly—­a task not easy to accomplish.