210 ABTHUE o. LOVEJOY: priori of all possible reality, and in need of no further justifi- cation or explanation. Kant, in short, for once abandons (though only to resume it on the next page) his usual language about analytical propositions ; and includes within their range some judgments per attribute,, which include distinctly more than need be wirklich gedacht in the original conception of their subject. As for the mere question of phraseology, we need not further discuss whether Kant or Eberhard is right. Eberhard had sensibly remarked what Kant could never be brought to recognise that " the controversy as to whether a proposition is analytical or synthetical is a controversy of no importance for the determination of the logical truth of the proposition 'V What is important is the determination of the question whether or not there really subsists between two given concepts, not denned as identical in essence, such a relation that, if the first is negated of the second, the latter becomes unthinkable within the terms of its own essence. When this is admitted and Kant now admits that such a relation is possible the rest is merely a dispute as to the sort of metaphor which may most felicitously express this logical fact. (2) Thus far Kant has committed himself to the admissions (a) that some propositions in which the predicates are at- tributa rationata of the subject, are analytical ; (b) that all analytical propositions are true a priori of reality in general. He further urges, however, that some propositions containing -attributa as predicates are synthetical ; and he insists that none of his precursors had shown as he had done how, in this case, such propositions can be known to be valid. Here Kant evidently has in mind the theorems of mathema- tics. These, he was sure, could only be called synthetical propositions ; and if synthetical, they required some justifica- tion other than what Baumgarten would have called " the internal marks of truth," their actual coinherence in the mind. This justification Kant believed that he alone had discovered, in his celebrated doctrine of the a priori percepts. The reason why synthetical judgments are possible a priori is that they are mediated through a reine Anschauung. Here is where Kant finally endeavours to come to a really sig- nificant issue with his critic ; and it is desirable to hear his own words, which, in part, are not susceptible of adequate translation: " Wenn gesagt wird, dass ich sie iiber die gege- benen Begriffe hinaus, auch ohne Erfahrung, vermehren, d. i. a priori synthetisch urteilen konne, und man setzte hinzu, 1 Philosophisches Magazin, 1789, p. 331.
