Excerpt from The Kantian Epistemology and Theism
Metaphysics is the most human of all departments of knowledge. This can be seen from the fact that the first question of unreflective thought is the same as that which holds the chief place in philosophic reflection. Man looks within and without himself, upon his own thoughts and passions which come and go, out upon the phenomena of nature, and the question which comes nearest to the mind and heart of all is, What is real? Where are we to find the ground of phenomena? Reality there surely is, or else all philosophy would be vain. This is the great intuition of which the consciousness of every age is heir; but where is ultimate Reality to be found, and what is its nature? Such questions, from their very nature, are the first to suggest themselves to man, and when once he has consciously reflected upon them he becomes aware that not only are they logically and temporally the first questions for humanity, but that from the standpoint of worth for the human spirit, Metaphysics is that which man as a rational being must have. While humanity exists and strives, hopes and despairs, rejoices and sorrows, its own soul with its hope of immortality and belief in its freedom and responsibility, the world about it, and the God above must always be the questions of the greatest worth, and these are the questions of Metaphysics.
But while we reflect upon Being or Reality, its idea has been a part of our conscious experience, and were this not so we could not have reflected upon it. By the idea of the Real then alone can we solve our problems. Now the idea or conscious experience of Reality is knowledge, so that the problem of knowledge is inseparable from that of Being. The first question, then, which reflective thought puts itself as it proceeds to the solution of its fundamental problem is this, - Is knowledge possible? - and of course, the next question is, - If possible, how? - In seeking an answer to these two questions it is to be remembered that knowledge has been defined as the idea, that is, the mind"s grasp of Reality, so that any answer which makes knowledge anything less than this must be rejected.
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