al theories of 'sense' and of 'forms of perception'. Light,
however, may be thrown upon the problems raised by the _Aesthetic_,
and upon Kant's solution of them, in two ways. In the first place, we
may attempt to vindicate the implication of the preceding criticism,
that the very nature of knowledge presupposes the independent
existence of the reality known, and to show that, in consequence, all
idealism is of the variety known as subjective. In the second place,
we may point out the way in which Kant is misled by failing to realize
(1) the directness of the relation between the knower and the reality
known, and (2) the impossibility of transferring what belongs to one
side of the relation to the other.

The question whether any reality exists independently of the knowledge
of it may be approached thus. The standpoint of the preceding
criticism of Kant may be described as that of the plain man. It is the
view that the mind comes by a temporal process to apprehend or to know
a spatial world which exists independently of it or of any other mind,
and that the mind knows it as it exists in the independence. 'Now this
view,' it may be replied, 'is exposed to at least one fatal objection.
It presupposes the possibility of knowing the thing in itself, i. e.
something which exists independently of the mind which comes to know
it. Whatever is true, this is not. Whatever be the criticism to which
Kant's doctrine is exposed in detail, it contains one inexpugnable
thesis, viz. that the thing in itself cannot be known. Unless the
physical world stands in essential relation to the mind, it is
impossible to understand how it can be known. This position being
unassailable, any criticism of an idealistic theory must be compatible
with it, and therefore confined to details. Moreover, Kant's view can
be transformed into one which will defy criticism. Its unsatisfactory
character lies in the fact that in regarding the physical world as
dependent on the mind, it really alters the character of the world by
reducing the world to a succession of 'appearances' which, as such,
can only be mental, i. e. can only belong to the mind's own being.
Bodies, as being really appearances in the mind, are regarded as on
the level of transitory mental occurrences, and as thereby at least
resembling feelings and sensations. This consequence, however, can be
avoided by maintaining that the real truth after which Kant was
groping was that knower and known form