Kant's Prolegomena and Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science

Abstract

THE pages of NATURE are not the appropriate place for the review of works on general metaphysics. The genius and methods of science are so different from those of philosophy that, as their respective histories have amply shown, these branches of intellectual activity are as a rule best kept asunder. But there is at least one important point of contact which cannot be overlooked. And it is just because in the writings of Kant, and particularly in the second of the two treatises which are translated in this volume, that alleged point of contact was formulated for the first time that his work rightly or wrongly demands notice in these pages. As regards the translation, Mr. Bax has done his work with care. He has undertaken simply to furnish a literal and accurate translation of the “Prolegomena” and “Metaphysische Aufangsgrunde,” and he has fulfilled his undertaking. We should have been glad could he have seen his way to banish such inelegant and inaccurate renderings of “Vorstellung” and “Anschauurg” as “representation” and “intuition,” and to substitute for them “idea” and “perception,” which, despite their vagueness, are English words of intelligible significance. But no one can fail to find in the translation, as it stands, a faithful and consistent rendering of the original. Kant' Prolegomena and Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Translated, with a Biography and Introduction, by Ernest Belfort Bax. (London: George Bell and Sons, 1883.)