method, so abused,
produced transcendental myth. A conscientious critique of knowledge
was turned into a sham system of nature. We must therefore distinguish
sharply the transcendental grammar of the intellect, which is
significant and potentially correct, from the various transcendental
systems of the universe, which are chimeras.

In both its parts, however, transcendentalism had much to recommend it
to American philosophers, for the transcendental method appealed to
the individualistic and revolutionary temper of their youth, while
transcendental myths enabled them to find a new status for their
inherited theology, and to give what parts of it they cared to
preserve some semblance of philosophical backing. This last was the
use to which the transcendental method was put by Kant himself, who
first brought it into vogue, before the terrible weapon had got out of
hand, and become the instrument of pure romanticism. Kant came, he
himself said, to remove knowledge in order to make room for faith,
which in his case meant faith in Calvinism. In other words, he applied
the transcendental method to matters of fact, reducing them thereby
to human ideas, in order to give to the Calvinistic postulates of
conscience a metaphysical validity. For Kant had a genteel tradition
of his own, which he wished to remove to a place of safety, feeling
that the empirical world had become too hot for it; and this place of
safety was the region of transcendental myth. I need hardly say how
perfectly this expedient suited the needs of philosophers in America,
and it is no accident if the influence of Kant soon became dominant
here. To embrace this philosophy was regarded as a sign of profound
metaphysical insight, although the most mediocre minds found no
difficulty in embracing it. In truth it was a sign of having been
brought up in the genteel tradition, of feeling it weak, and of
wishing to save it.

But the transcendental method, in its way, was also sympathetic to the
American mind. It embodied, in a radical form, the spirit of
Protestantism as distinguished from its inherited doctrines; it was
autonomous, undismayed, calmly revolutionary; it felt that Will was
deeper than Intellect; it focussed everything here and now, and asked
all things to show their credentials at the bar of the young self, and
to prove their value for this latest born moment. These things are
truly American; they would be characteristic of any young society with
a