A Mediæval Formula in Kant

t is generally admitted, even by loyal Kantians, that the methods of classification employed by Kant owe much to the scholastic tradition. Defenders of Kant have been anxious to assert that these traces of scholastic terminology affect merely the external form of Kant's presentation and do not penetrate to the centre of his thought. But distinctions between surface and depth are always pernicious in intellectual matters; and it is neither a correct nor a very flattering reflection on Kant to claim that the form and the spirit can be separated in his arguments without detriment to their meaning. Actually, if we were to leave out from Kant's writings those parts which are strikingly medieval in form, we should have to omit even one passage which is generally -and justly-regarded as one of his most characteristically personal expressions. In discussing the three metaphysical questions which, according to his system, are insoluble as problems but indispensable as guides -"God, Freedom, and Immortality"-he summarizes them in a formula which appears to be distinctly eighteenth century, Prussian, and Protestant :