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the title :
FIRST CLASS OP OBJECTS FOR THE SUBJECT. 109
" Third
Analogy of Experience." Here Kant
goes so far as to say that
"
the co-existence of phenomena,
which exercise no reciprocal action on one another, but are
separated by a perfectly empty space, could never become
an object of possible
" 1
perception (which, by the way,
would be a proof a priori that there is no empty space
between the fixed stars), and that
"
the light which plays
between our eyes and celestial bodies" an expression
conveying surreptitiously the thought, that this starlight
not only acts upon our eyes, but is acted upon by them
also
"
produces an intercommunity between us and them,
and proves the co-existence of the latter." Now, even
empirically, this last assertion is false ; since the sight of a
fixed star by no means proves its coexistence simul
taneously with its spectator, but, at most, its existence
some years, nay even some centuries before. Besides, this
second Kantian theory stands and falls with the first,
only it is far more easily detected ; and the nullity of
the whole conception of reciprocity has been shown in
20.
The arguments I have brought forward against Kant s
proof may be compared with two previous attacks made on
it by Feder, 2
and by G-. E. Schulze. 3
Not without considerable hesitation did I thus venture
(in 1813) to attack a theory which had been universally
received as a demonstrated truth, is repeated even now in the
latest publications, 4 and forms a chief point in the doctrine
of one for whose profound wisdom I have the greatest
one to whom, indeed, I owe so
reverence and admiration ;
1
Kant,
"
Krit. d. r. Vern." pp. 212 and 213 of the 1st edition. (Eng-
lish translation, pp. 185 and 186.)
2
"
Feder, Ueber Raum und Causalitat." sect. 29.
3
G. E. Schulze,
"
Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie," vol. ii.
p. 422 sqq.
4 "
For instance, in Fries Kritik der Vernunft," yol. ii. p. 85.