From 7835af832adbd666ae18f021f0c889fd40caae7e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Hay Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:55:56 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] initial checkin --- index.php | 69 ++++++ markov.php | 85 +++++++ text/alice.txt | 640 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ text/calvin.txt | 237 ++++++++++++++++++ text/kant.txt | 154 ++++++++++++ 5 files changed, 1185 insertions(+) create mode 100644 index.php create mode 100644 markov.php create mode 100644 text/alice.txt create mode 100644 text/calvin.txt create mode 100644 text/kant.txt diff --git a/index.php b/index.php new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd7d296 --- /dev/null +++ b/index.php @@ -0,0 +1,69 @@ + + Fork on Github: < http://github.com/hay/markov > +*/ + +require 'markov.php'; + +if (isset($_POST['submit'])) { + // generate text with markov library + $order = $_REQUEST['order']; + $length = $_REQUEST['length']; + $input = $_REQUEST['input']; + $ptext = $_REQUEST['text']; + + if ($input) $text = $input; + if ($ptext) $text = file_get_contents("text/".$ptext.".txt"); + + if(isset($text)) { + $markov_table = generate_markov_table($text, $order); + $markov = generate_markov_text($length, $markov_table, $order); + + if (get_magic_quotes_gpc()) $markov = stripslashes($markov); + } +} +?> + + + + + PHP Markov chain text generator by Hay Kranen + + + + + +
+

PHP Markov chain text generator

+

This is a very simple Markov chain text generator. Try it below by entering some + text or by selecting one of the pre-selected texts available.

+

The source code of this generator is available under the terms of the MIT license.See the original posting on this generator here.

+ + +

Output text

+ + + +

Input text

+
+ +
+ +
+ + + + +
+ +
+
+ + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/markov.php b/markov.php new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c41bb57 --- /dev/null +++ b/markov.php @@ -0,0 +1,85 @@ + + Fork on Github: < http://github.com/hay/markov > + + License (MIT / X11 license) + + Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person + obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation + files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without + restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, + copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell + copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the + Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following + conditions: + + The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be + included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. + + THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, + EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES + OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND + NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT + HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, + WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING + FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR + OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. +*/ + +function generate_markov_table($text, $look_forward) { + $table = array(); + + // now walk through the text and make the index table + for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($text); $i++) { + $char = substr($text, $i, $look_forward); + if (!isset($table[$char])) $table[$char] = array(); + } + + // walk the array again and count the numbers + for ($i = 0; $i < (strlen($text) - $look_forward); $i++) { + $char_index = substr($text, $i, $look_forward); + $char_count = substr($text, $i+$look_forward, $look_forward); + + if (isset($table[$char_index][$char_count])) { + $table[$char_index][$char_count]++; + } else { + $table[$char_index][$char_count] = 1; + } + } + + return $table; +} + +function generate_markov_text($length, $table, $look_forward) { + // get first character + $char = array_rand($table); + $o = $char; + + for ($i = 0; $i < ($length / $look_forward); $i++) { + $newchar = return_weighted_char($table[$char]); + + if ($newchar) { + $char = $newchar; + $o .= $newchar; + } else { + $char = array_rand($table); + } + } + + return $o; +} + + +function return_weighted_char($array) { + if (!$array) return false; + + $total = array_sum($array); + $rand = mt_rand(1, $total); + foreach ($array as $item => $weight) { + if ($rand <= $weight) return $item; + $rand -= $weight; + } +} +?> \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/text/alice.txt b/text/alice.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ed088e --- /dev/null +++ b/text/alice.txt @@ -0,0 +1,640 @@ +ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND + +I—DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE + +Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do. Once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?" + +So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her. + +There was nothing so very remarkable in that, nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" But when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket and looked at it and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and, burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole, under the hedge. In another moment, down went Alice after it! + +The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down what seemed to be a very deep well. + +Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time, as she went down, to look about her. First, she tried to make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed. It was labeled "ORANGE MARMALADE," but, to her great disappointment, it was empty; she did not like to drop the jar, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it. + +Down, down, down! Would the fall never come to an end? There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking to herself. "Dinah'll miss me very much to-night, I should think!" (Dinah was the cat.) "I hope they'll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah, my dear, I wish you were down here with me!" Alice felt that she was dozing off, when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over. + +Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up in a moment. She looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another long passage and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost. Away went Alice like the wind and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, "Oh, my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!" She was close behind it when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen. + +She found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof. There were doors all 'round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again. + + + +Suddenly she came upon a little table, all made of solid glass. There was nothing on it but a tiny golden key, and Alice's first idea was that this might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, but, at any rate, it would not open any of them. However, on the second time 'round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high. She tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight, it fitted! + +Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole; she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the doorway. "Oh," said Alice, "how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to begin." + +Alice went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate, a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes. This time she found a little bottle on it ("which certainly was not here before," said Alice), and tied 'round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words "DRINK ME" beautifully printed on it in large letters. + +"No, I'll look first," she said, "and see whether it's marked 'poison' or not," for she had never forgotten that, if you drink from a bottle marked "poison," it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later. However, this bottle was not marked "poison," so Alice ventured to taste it, and, finding it very nice (it had a sort of mixed flavor of cherry-tart, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, toffy and hot buttered toast), she very soon finished it off. + +"What a curious feeling!" said Alice. "I must be shutting up like a telescope!" + +And so it was indeed! She was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden. + +After awhile, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going into the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice! When she got to the door, she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it, she found she could not possibly reach it: she could see it quite plainly through the glass and she tried her best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery, and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried. + +"Come, there's no use in crying like that!" said Alice to herself rather sharply. "I advise you to leave off this minute!" She generally gave herself very good advice (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes. + +Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: she opened it and found in it a very small cake, on which the words "EAT ME" were beautifully marked in currants. "Well, I'll eat it," said Alice, "and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door: so either way I'll get into the garden, and I don't care which happens!" + +She ate a little bit and said anxiously to herself, "Which way? Which way?" holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way she was growing; and she was quite surprised to find that she remained the same size. So she set to work and very soon finished off the cake. + + + + +II—THE POOL OF TEARS + +"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice (she was so much surprised that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). "Now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-by, feet! Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you." + +Just at this moment her head struck against the roof of the hall; in fact, she was now rather more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door. + +Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more hopeless than ever. She sat down and began to cry again. + +She went on shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all 'round her and reaching half down the hall. + +After a time, she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid-gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other. He came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to himself, "Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won't she be savage if I've kept her waiting!" + + + +When the Rabbit came near her, Alice began, in a low, timid voice, "If you please, sir—" The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid-gloves and the fan and skurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go. + +Alice took up the fan and gloves and she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking. "Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. Was I the same when I got up this morning? But if I'm not the same, the next question is, 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!" + +As she said this, she looked down at her hands and was surprised to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit's little white kid-gloves while she was talking. "How can I have done that?" she thought. "I must be growing small again." She got up and went to the table to measure herself by it and found that she was now about two feet high and was going on shrinking rapidly. She soon found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding and she dropped it hastily, just in time to save herself from shrinking away altogether. + +"That was a narrow escape!" said Alice, a good deal frightened at the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence. "And now for the garden!" And she ran with all speed back to the little door; but, alas! the little door was shut again and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as before. "Things are worse than ever," thought the poor child, "for I never was so small as this before, never!" + +As she said these words, her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt-water. Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea. However, she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high. + + + +Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to see what it was: she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself. + +"Would it be of any use, now," thought Alice, "to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here that I should think very likely it can talk; at any rate, there's no harm in trying." So she began, "O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!" The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing. + +"Perhaps it doesn't understand English," thought Alice. "I dare say it's a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror." So she began again: "Où est ma chatte?" which was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water and seemed to quiver all over with fright. "Oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal's feelings. "I quite forgot you didn't like cats." + +"Not like cats!" cried the Mouse in a shrill, passionate voice. "Would you like cats, if you were me?" + +"Well, perhaps not," said Alice in a soothing tone; "don't be angry about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah. I think you'd take a fancy to cats, if you could only see her. She is such a dear, quiet thing." The Mouse was bristling all over and she felt certain it must be really offended. "We won't talk about her any more, if you'd rather not." + +"We, indeed!" cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of its tail. "As if I would talk on such a subject! Our family always hated cats—nasty, low, vulgar things! Don't let me hear the name again!" + +Alice at the Mad Tea Party. + +Alice at the Mad Tea Party. + +"I won't indeed!" said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of conversation. "Are you—are you fond—of—of dogs? There is such a nice little dog near our house, I should like to show you! It kills all the rats and—oh, dear!" cried Alice in a sorrowful tone. "I'm afraid I've offended it again!" For the Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the pool as it went. + +So she called softly after it, "Mouse dear! Do come back again, and we won't talk about cats, or dogs either, if you don't like them!" When the Mouse heard this, it turned 'round and swam slowly back to her; its face was quite pale, and it said, in a low, trembling voice, "Let us get to the shore and then I'll tell you my history and you'll understand why it is I hate cats and dogs." + +It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded with the birds and animals that had fallen into it; there were a Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious creatures. Alice led the way and the whole party swam to the shore. + + + + +III—A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE + +They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank—the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross and uncomfortable. + + + +The first question, of course, was how to get dry again. They had a consultation about this and after a few minutes, it seemed quite natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with them, as if she had known them all her life. + +At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of some authority among them, called out, "Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! I'll soon make you dry enough!" They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the middle. + +"Ahem!" said the Mouse with an important air. "Are you all ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all 'round, if you please! 'William the Conqueror, whose cause was favored by the pope, was soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria'—" + +"Ugh!" said the Lory, with a shiver. + +"—'And even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable'—" + +"Found what?" said the Duck. + +"Found it," the Mouse replied rather crossly; "of course, you know what 'it' means." + +"I know what 'it' means well enough, when I find a thing," said the Duck; "it's generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?" + +The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on, "'—found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him the crown.'—How are you getting on now, my dear?" it continued, turning to Alice as it spoke. + +"As wet as ever," said Alice in a melancholy tone; "it doesn't seem to dry me at all." + +"In that case," said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, "I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies—" + +"Speak English!" said the Eaglet. "I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and, what's more, I don't believe you do either!" + +"What I was going to say," said the Dodo in an offended tone, "is that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race." + +"What is a Caucus-race?" said Alice. + + + +"Why," said the Dodo, "the best way to explain it is to do it." First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no "One, two, three and away!" but they began running when they liked and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out, "The race is over!" and they all crowded 'round it, panting and asking, "But who has won?" + +This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought. At last it said, "Everybody has won, and all must have prizes." + +"But who is to give the prizes?" quite a chorus of voices asked. + +"Why, she, of course," said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one finger; and the whole party at once crowded 'round her, calling out, in a confused way, "Prizes! Prizes!" + +Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand into her pocket and pulled out a box of comfits (luckily the salt-water had not got into it) and handed them 'round as prizes. There was exactly one a-piece, all 'round. + +The next thing was to eat the comfits; this caused some noise and confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not taste theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on the back. However, it was over at last and they sat down again in a ring and begged the Mouse to tell them something more. + +"You promised to tell me your history, you know," said Alice, "and why it is you hate—C and D," she added in a whisper, half afraid that it would be offended again. + +"Mine is a long and a sad tale!" said the Mouse, turning to Alice and sighing. + +"It is a long tail, certainly," said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail, "but why do you call it sad?" And she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the tale was something like this:— +"Fury said to +a mouse, That +he met in the +house, 'Let +us both go +to law: I +will prosecute +you.— +Come, I'll +take no denial: +We must have +the trial; +For really +this morning +I've +nothing +to do.' +Said the +mouse to +the cur, +'Such a +trial, dear +sir, With +no jury +or judge, +would +be wasting +our +breath.' +'I'll be +judge, +I'll be +jury,' +said +cunning +old +Fury; +'I'll +try +the +whole +cause, +and +condemn +you to +death.'" + +"You are not attending!" said the Mouse to Alice, severely. "What are you thinking of?" + +"I beg your pardon," said Alice very humbly, "you had got to the fifth bend, I think?" + +"You insult me by talking such nonsense!" said the Mouse, getting up and walking away. + +"Please come back and finish your story!" Alice called after it. And the others all joined in chorus, "Yes, please do!" But the Mouse only shook its head impatiently and walked a little quicker. + +"I wish I had Dinah, our cat, here!" said Alice. This caused a remarkable sensation among the party. Some of the birds hurried off at once, and a Canary called out in a trembling voice, to its children, "Come away, my dears! It's high time you were all in bed!" On various pretexts they all moved off and Alice was soon left alone. + +"I wish I hadn't mentioned Dinah! Nobody seems to like her down here and I'm sure she's the best cat in the world!" Poor Alice began to cry again, for she felt very lonely and low-spirited. In a little while, however, she again heard a little pattering of footsteps in the distance and she looked up eagerly. + + + + + + +IV—THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL + +It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again and looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something; Alice heard it muttering to itself, "The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh, my dear paws! Oh, my fur and whiskers! She'll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where can I have dropped them, I wonder?" Alice guessed in a moment that it was looking for the fan and the pair of white kid-gloves and she very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, but they were nowhere to be seen—everything seemed to have changed since her swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and the little door, had vanished completely. + +Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, and called to her, in an angry tone, "Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here? Run home this moment and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!" + +"He took me for his housemaid!" said Alice, as she ran off. "How surprised he'll be when he finds out who I am!" As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name "W. RABBIT" engraved upon it. She went in without knocking and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the real Mary Ann and be turned out of the house before she had found the fan and gloves. + +By this time, Alice had found her way into a tidy little room with a table in the window, and on it a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white kid-gloves; she took up the fan and a pair of the gloves and was just going to leave the room, when her eyes fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking-glass. She uncorked it and put it to her lips, saying to herself, "I do hope it'll make me grow large again, for, really, I'm quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!" + +Before she had drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing against the ceiling, and had to stoop to save her neck from being broken. She hastily put down the bottle, remarking, "That's quite enough—I hope I sha'n't grow any more." + +Alas! It was too late to wish that! She went on growing and growing and very soon she had to kneel down on the floor. Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself, "Now I can do no more, whatever happens. What will become of me?" + + + +Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full effect and she grew no larger. After a few minutes she heard a voice outside and stopped to listen. + +"Mary Ann! Mary Ann!" said the voice. "Fetch me my gloves this moment!" Then came a little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look for her and she trembled till she shook the house, quite forgetting that she was now about a thousand times as large as the Rabbit and had no reason to be afraid of it. + +Presently the Rabbit came up to the door and tried to open it; but as the door opened inwards and Alice's elbow was pressed hard against it, that attempt proved a failure. Alice heard it say to itself, "Then I'll go 'round and get in at the window." + +"That you won't!" thought Alice; and after waiting till she fancied she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly spread out her hand and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall and a crash of broken glass, from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen into a cucumber-frame or something of that sort. + +Next came an angry voice—the Rabbit's—"Pat! Pat! Where are you?" And then a voice she had never heard before, "Sure then, I'm here! Digging for apples, yer honor!" + +"Here! Come and help me out of this! Now tell me, Pat, what's that in the window?" + +"Sure, it's an arm, yer honor!" + +"Well, it's got no business there, at any rate; go and take it away!" + +There was a long silence after this and Alice could only hear whispers now and then, and at last she spread out her hand again and made another snatch in the air. This time there were two little shrieks and more sounds of broken glass. "I wonder what they'll do next!" thought Alice. "As for pulling me out of the window, I only wish they could!" + +She waited for some time without hearing anything more. At last came a rumbling of little cart-wheels and the sound of a good many voices all talking together. She made out the words: "Where's the other ladder? Bill's got the other—Bill! Here, Bill! Will the roof bear?—Who's to go down the chimney?—Nay, I sha'n't! You do it! Here, Bill! The master says you've got to go down the chimney!" + +Alice drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could and waited till she heard a little animal scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close above her; then she gave one sharp kick and waited to see what would happen next. + +The first thing she heard was a general chorus of "There goes Bill!" then the Rabbit's voice alone—"Catch him, you by the hedge!" Then silence and then another confusion of voices—"Hold up his head—Brandy now—Don't choke him—What happened to you?" + +Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, "Well, I hardly know—No more, thank ye. I'm better now—all I know is, something comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box and up I goes like a sky-rocket!" + +After a minute or two of silence, they began moving about again, and Alice heard the Rabbit say, "A barrowful will do, to begin with." + +"A barrowful of what?" thought Alice. But she had not long to doubt, for the next moment a shower of little pebbles came rattling in at the window and some of them hit her in the face. Alice noticed, with some surprise, that the pebbles were all turning into little cakes as they lay on the floor and a bright idea came into her head. "If I eat one of these cakes," she thought, "it's sure to make some change in my size." + +So she swallowed one of the cakes and was delighted to find that she began shrinking directly. As soon as she was small enough to get through the door, she ran out of the house and found quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting outside. They all made a rush at Alice the moment she appeared, but she ran off as hard as she could and soon found herself safe in a thick wood. + +The Duchess tucked her arm affectionately into Alice's. + +"The Duchess tucked her arm affectionately into Alice's." + +"The first thing I've got to do," said Alice to herself, as she wandered about in the wood, "is to grow to my right size again; and the second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other, but the great question is 'What?'" + +Alice looked all around her at the flowers and the blades of grass, but she could not see anything that looked like the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances. There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the same height as herself. She stretched herself up on tiptoe and peeped over the edge and her eyes immediately met those of a large blue caterpillar, that was sitting on the top, with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else. + + + + +V—ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR + +At last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and addressed Alice in a languid, sleepy voice. + +"Who are you?" said the Caterpillar. + + + +Alice replied, rather shyly, "I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then." + +"What do you mean by that?" said the Caterpillar, sternly. "Explain yourself!" + +"I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir," said Alice, "because I'm not myself, you see—being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing." She drew herself up and said very gravely, "I think you ought to tell me who you are, first." + +"Why?" said the Caterpillar. + +As Alice could not think of any good reason and the Caterpillar seemed to be in a very unpleasant state of mind, she turned away. + +"Come back!" the Caterpillar called after her. "I've something important to say!" Alice turned and came back again. + +"Keep your temper," said the Caterpillar. + +"Is that all?" said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she could. + +"No," said the Caterpillar. + +It unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said, "So you think you're changed, do you?" + +"I'm afraid, I am, sir," said Alice. "I can't remember things as I used—and I don't keep the same size for ten minutes together!" + +"What size do you want to be?" asked the Caterpillar. + +"Oh, I'm not particular as to size," Alice hastily replied, "only one doesn't like changing so often, you know. I should like to be a little larger, sir, if you wouldn't mind," said Alice. "Three inches is such a wretched height to be." + +"It is a very good height indeed!" said the Caterpillar angrily, rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high). + +In a minute or two, the Caterpillar got down off the mushroom and crawled away into the grass, merely remarking, as it went, "One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter." + +"One side of what? The other side of what?" thought Alice to herself. + +"Of the mushroom," said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it aloud; and in another moment, it was out of sight. + +Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying to make out which were the two sides of it. At last she stretched her arms 'round it as far as they would go, and broke off a bit of the edge with each hand. + +"And now which is which?" she said to herself, and nibbled a little of the right-hand bit to try the effect. The next moment she felt a violent blow underneath her chin—it had struck her foot! + +She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, as she was shrinking rapidly; so she set to work at once to eat some of the other bit. Her chin was pressed so closely against her foot that there was hardly room to open her mouth; but she did it at last and managed to swallow a morsel of the left-hand bit.... + +"Come, my head's free at last!" said Alice; but all she could see, when she looked down, was an immense length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves that lay far below her. + +"Where have my shoulders got to? And oh, my poor hands, how is it I can't see you?" She was delighted to find that her neck would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent. She had just succeeded in curving it down into a graceful zigzag and was going to dive in among the leaves, when a sharp hiss made her draw back in a hurry—a large pigeon had flown into her face and was beating her violently with its wings. + + + +"Serpent!" cried the Pigeon. + +"I'm not a serpent!" said Alice indignantly. "Let me alone!" + +"I've tried the roots of trees, and I've tried banks, and I've tried hedges," the Pigeon went on, "but those serpents! There's no pleasing them!" + +Alice was more and more puzzled. + +"As if it wasn't trouble enough hatching the eggs," said the Pigeon, "but I must be on the look-out for serpents, night and day! And just as I'd taken the highest tree in the wood," continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, "and just as I was thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!" + +"But I'm not a serpent, I tell you!" said Alice. "I'm a—I'm a—I'm a little girl," she added rather doubtfully, as she remembered the number of changes she had gone through that day. + +"You're looking for eggs, I know that well enough," said the Pigeon; "and what does it matter to me whether you're a little girl or a serpent?" + +"It matters a good deal to me," said Alice hastily; "but I'm not looking for eggs, as it happens, and if I was, I shouldn't want yours—I don't like them raw." + +"Well, be off, then!" said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as it settled down again into its nest. Alice crouched down among the trees as well as she could, for her neck kept getting entangled among the branches, and every now and then she had to stop and untwist it. After awhile she remembered that she still held the pieces of mushroom in her hands, and she set to work very carefully, nibbling first at one and then at the other, and growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until she had succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height. + +It was so long since she had been anything near the right size that it felt quite strange at first. "The next thing is to get into that beautiful garden—how is that to be done, I wonder?" As she said this, she came suddenly upon an open place, with a little house in it about four feet high. "Whoever lives there," thought Alice, "it'll never do to come upon them this size; why, I should frighten them out of their wits!" She did not venture to go near the house till she had brought herself down to nine inches high. + + +VI—PIG AND PEPPER + +For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the wood (judging by his face only, she would have called him a fish)—and rapped loudly at the door with his knuckles. It was opened by another footman in livery, with a round face and large eyes like a frog. + + + +The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great letter, and this he handed over to the other, saying, in a solemn tone, "For the Duchess. An invitation from the Queen to play croquet." The Frog-Footman repeated, in the same solemn tone, "From the Queen. An invitation for the Duchess to play croquet." Then they both bowed low and their curls got entangled together. + +When Alice next peeped out, the Fish-Footman was gone, and the other was sitting on the ground near the door, staring stupidly up into the sky. Alice went timidly up to the door and knocked. + +"There's no sort of use in knocking," said the Footman, "and that for two reasons. First, because I'm on the same side of the door as you are; secondly, because they're making such a noise inside, no one could possibly hear you." And certainly there was a most extraordinary noise going on within—a constant howling and sneezing, and every now and then a great crash, as if a dish or kettle had been broken to pieces. + +"How am I to get in?" asked Alice. + +"Are you to get in at all?" said the Footman. "That's the first question, you know." + +Alice opened the door and went in. The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of smoke from one end to the other; the Duchess was sitting on a three-legged stool in the middle, nursing a baby; the cook was leaning over the fire, stirring a large caldron which seemed to be full of soup. + +"There's certainly too much pepper in that soup!" Alice said to herself, as well as she could for sneezing. Even the Duchess sneezed occasionally; and as for the baby, it was sneezing and howling alternately without a moment's pause. The only two creatures in the kitchen that did not sneeze were the cook and a large cat, which was grinning from ear to ear. + +"Please would you tell me," said Alice, a little timidly, "why your cat grins like that?" + +"It's a Cheshire-Cat," said the Duchess, "and that's why." + +"I didn't know that Cheshire-Cats always grinned; in fact, I didn't know that cats could grin," said Alice. + +"You don't know much," said the Duchess, "and that's a fact." + +Just then the cook took the caldron of soup off the fire, and at once set to work throwing everything within her reach at the Duchess and the baby—the fire-irons came first; then followed a shower of saucepans, plates and dishes. The Duchess took no notice of them, even when they hit her, and the baby was howling so much already that it was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not. + +"Oh, please mind what you're doing!" cried Alice, jumping up and down in an agony of terror. + +"Here! You may nurse it a bit, if you like!" the Duchess said to Alice, flinging the baby at her as she spoke. "I must go and get ready to play croquet with the Queen," and she hurried out of the room. + +Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-shaped little creature and held out its arms and legs in all directions. "If I don't take this child away with me," thought Alice, "they're sure to kill it in a day or two. Wouldn't it be murder to leave it behind?" She said the last words out loud and the little thing grunted in reply. + +"If you're going to turn into a pig, my dear," said Alice, "I'll have nothing more to do with you. Mind now!" + +Alice was just beginning to think to herself, "Now, what am I to do with this creature, when I get it home?" when it grunted again so violently that Alice looked down into its face in some alarm. This time there could be no mistake about it—it was neither more nor less than a pig; so she set the little creature down and felt quite relieved to see it trot away quietly into the wood. + +Alice was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire-Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off. The Cat only grinned when it saw her. "Cheshire-Puss," began Alice, rather timidly, "would you please tell me which way I ought to go from here?" + +"In that direction," the Cat said, waving the right paw 'round, "lives a Hatter; and in that direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like; they're both mad." + +"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. + +"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat; "we're all mad here. Do you play croquet with the Queen to-day?" + +"I should like it very much," said Alice, "but I haven't been invited yet." + +"You'll see me there," said the Cat, and vanished. + +Alice had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the house of the March Hare; it was so large a house that she did not like to go near till she had nibbled some more of the left-hand bit of mushroom. + + +VII—A MAD TEA-PARTY + +There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it; a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep. + +The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it. "No room! No room!" they cried out when they saw Alice coming. "There's plenty of room!" said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table. + +The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this, but all he said was "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?" + +"I'm glad they've begun asking riddles—I believe I can guess that," she added aloud. + +"Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?" said the March Hare. + +"Exactly so," said Alice. + +"Then you should say what you mean," the March Hare went on. + +"I do," Alice hastily replied; "at least—at least I mean what I say—that's the same thing, you know." + +"You might just as well say," added the Dormouse, which seemed to be talking in its sleep, "that 'I breathe when I sleep' is the same thing as 'I sleep when I breathe!'" + +"It is the same thing with you," said the Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea upon its nose. The Dormouse shook its head impatiently and said, without opening its eyes, "Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself." + + + +"Have you guessed the riddle yet?" the Hatter said, turning to Alice again. + +"No, I give it up," Alice replied. "What's the answer?" + +"I haven't the slightest idea," said the Hatter. + +"Nor I," said the March Hare. + +Alice gave a weary sigh. "I think you might do something better with the time," she said, "than wasting it in asking riddles that have no answers." + +"Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. + +"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more." + +"You mean you can't take less," said the Hatter; "it's very easy to take more than nothing." + +At this, Alice got up and walked off. The Dormouse fell asleep instantly and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice; the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the tea-pot. + +The Trial of the Knave of Hearts. + +The Trial of the Knave of Hearts. + +"At any rate, I'll never go there again!" said Alice, as she picked her way through the wood. "It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!" Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a door leading right into it. "That's very curious!" she thought. "I think I may as well go in at once." And in she went. + +Once more she found herself in the long hall and close to the little glass table. Taking the little golden key, she unlocked the door that led into the garden. Then she set to work nibbling at the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a foot high; then she walked down the little passage; and then—she found herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains. +VIII—THE QUEEN'S CROQUET GROUND + +A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden; the roses growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily painting them red. Suddenly their eyes chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood watching them. "Would you tell me, please," said Alice, a little timidly, "why you are painting those roses?" + +Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began, in a low voice, "Why, the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and, if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So you see, Miss, we're doing our best, afore she comes, to—" At this moment, Five, who had been anxiously looking across the garden, called out, "The Queen! The Queen!" and the three gardeners instantly threw themselves flat upon their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps and Alice looked 'round, eager to see the Queen. + +First came ten soldiers carrying clubs, with their hands and feet at the corners: next the ten courtiers; these were ornamented all over with diamonds. After these came the royal children; there were ten of them, all ornamented with hearts. Next came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, and among them Alice recognized the White Rabbit. Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying the King's crown on a crimson velvet cushion; and last of all this grand procession came THE KING AND THE QUEEN OF HEARTS. + +When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped and looked at her, and the Queen said severely, "Who is this?" She said it to the Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply. + +"My name is Alice, so please Your Majesty," said Alice very politely; but she added to herself, "Why, they're only a pack of cards, after all!" + +"Can you play croquet?" shouted the Queen. The question was evidently meant for Alice. + +"Yes!" said Alice loudly. + +"Come on, then!" roared the Queen. + +"It's—it's a very fine day!" said a timid voice to Alice. She was walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her face. + +"Very," said Alice. "Where's the Duchess?" + +"Hush! Hush!" said the Rabbit. "She's under sentence of execution." + +"What for?" said Alice. + +"She boxed the Queen's ears—" the Rabbit began. + +"Get to your places!" shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and people began running about in all directions, tumbling up against each other. However, they got settled down in a minute or two, and the game began. + +Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in her life; it was all ridges and furrows. The croquet balls were live hedgehogs, and the mallets live flamingos and the soldiers had to double themselves up and stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches. + +The players all played at once, without waiting for turns, quarrelling all the while and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short time, the Queen was in a furious passion and went stamping about and shouting, "Off with his head!" or "Off with her head!" about once in a minute. + +"They're dreadfully fond of beheading people here," thought Alice; "the great wonder is that there's anyone left alive!" + +She was looking about for some way of escape, when she noticed a curious appearance in the air. "It's the Cheshire-Cat," she said to herself; "now I shall have somebody to talk to." + +"How are you getting on?" said the Cat. + +"I don't think they play at all fairly," Alice said, in a rather complaining tone; "and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can't hear oneself speak—and they don't seem to have any rules in particular." + +"How do you like the Queen?" said the Cat in a low voice. + +"Not at all," said Alice. + + + +Alice thought she might as well go back and see how the game was going on. So she went off in search of her hedgehog. The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog, which seemed to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them with the other; the only difficulty was that her flamingo was gone across to the other side of the garden, where Alice could see it trying, in a helpless sort of way, to fly up into a tree. She caught the flamingo and tucked it away under her arm, that it might not escape again. + +Just then Alice ran across the Duchess (who was now out of prison). She tucked her arm affectionately into Alice's and they walked off together. Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant temper. She was a little startled, however, when she heard the voice of the Duchess close to her ear. "You're thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk." + +"The game's going on rather better now," Alice said, by way of keeping up the conversation a little. + +"'Tis so," said the Duchess; "and the moral of that is—'Oh, 'tis love, 'tis love that makes the world go 'round!'" + +"Somebody said," Alice whispered, "that it's done by everybody minding his own business!" + +"Ah, well! It means much the same thing," said the Duchess, digging her sharp little chin into Alice's shoulder, as she added "and the moral of that is—'Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves.'" + +To Alice's great surprise, the Duchess's arm that was linked into hers began to tremble. Alice looked up and there stood the Queen in front of them, with her arms folded, frowning like a thunderstorm! + +"Now, I give you fair warning," shouted the Queen, stamping on the ground as she spoke, "either you or your head must be off, and that in about half no time. Take your choice!" The Duchess took her choice, and was gone in a moment. + +"Let's go on with the game," the Queen said to Alice; and Alice was too much frightened to say a word, but slowly followed her back to the croquet-ground. + +All the time they were playing, the Queen never left off quarreling with the other players and shouting, "Off with his head!" or "Off with her head!" By the end of half an hour or so, all the players, except the King, the Queen and Alice, were in custody of the soldiers and under sentence of execution. + +Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and walked away with Alice. + +Alice heard the King say in a low voice to the company generally, "You are all pardoned." + +Suddenly the cry "The Trial's beginning!" was heard in the distance, and Alice ran along with the others. +IX—WHO STOLE THE TARTS? + +The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when they arrived, with a great crowd assembled about them—all sorts of little birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards: the Knave was standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on each side to guard him; and near the King was the White Rabbit, with a trumpet in one hand and a scroll of parchment in the other. In the very middle of the court was a table, with a large dish of tarts upon it. "I wish they'd get the trial done," Alice thought, "and hand 'round the refreshments!" + + + +The judge, by the way, was the King and he wore his crown over his great wig. "That's the jury-box," thought Alice; "and those twelve creatures (some were animals and some were birds) I suppose they are the jurors." + +Just then the White Rabbit cried out "Silence in the court!" + +"Herald, read the accusation!" said the King. + +On this, the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, then unrolled the parchment-scroll and read as follows: +"The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, +All on a summer day; +The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts +And took them quite away!" + +"Call the first witness," said the King; and the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet and called out, "First witness!" + +The first witness was the Hatter. He came in with a teacup in one hand and a piece of bread and butter in the other. + +"You ought to have finished," said the King. "When did you begin?" + +The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had followed him into the court, arm in arm with the Dormouse. "Fourteenth of March, I think it was," he said. + +"Give your evidence," said the King, "and don't be nervous, or I'll have you executed on the spot." + +This did not seem to encourage the witness at all; he kept shifting from one foot to the other, looking uneasily at the Queen, and, in his confusion, he bit a large piece out of his teacup instead of the bread and butter. + +Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation—she was beginning to grow larger again. + +The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread and butter and went down on one knee. "I'm a poor man, Your Majesty," he began. + +"You're a very poor speaker," said the King. + +"You may go," said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the court. + +"Call the next witness!" said the King. + +The next witness was the Duchess's cook. She carried the pepper-box in her hand and the people near the door began sneezing all at once. + +"Give your evidence," said the King. + +"Sha'n't," said the cook. + +The King looked anxiously at the White Rabbit, who said, in a low voice, "Your Majesty must cross-examine this witness." + +"Well, if I must, I must," the King said. "What are tarts made of?" + +"Pepper, mostly," said the cook. + +For some minutes the whole court was in confusion and by the time they had settled down again, the cook had disappeared. + +"Never mind!" said the King, "call the next witness." + +Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over the list. Imagine her surprise when he read out, at the top of his shrill little voice, the name "Alice!" +X—ALICE'S EVIDENCE + +"Here!" cried Alice. She jumped up in such a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box, upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below. + +"Oh, I beg your pardon!" she exclaimed in a tone of great dismay. + +"The trial cannot proceed," said the King, "until all the jurymen are back in their proper places—all," he repeated with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice. + +"What do you know about this business?" the King said to Alice. + +"Nothing whatever," said Alice. + +The King then read from his book: "Rule forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court." + +"I'm not a mile high," said Alice. + +"Nearly two miles high," said the Queen. + + + +"Well, I sha'n't go, at any rate," said Alice. + +The King turned pale and shut his note-book hastily. "Consider your verdict," he said to the jury, in a low, trembling voice. + +"There's more evidence to come yet, please Your Majesty," said the White Rabbit, jumping up in a great hurry. "This paper has just been picked up. It seems to be a letter written by the prisoner to—to somebody." He unfolded the paper as he spoke and added, "It isn't a letter, after all; it's a set of verses." + +"Please, Your Majesty," said the Knave, "I didn't write it and they can't prove that I did; there's no name signed at the end." + +"You must have meant some mischief, or else you'd have signed your name like an honest man," said the King. There was a general clapping of hands at this. + +"Read them," he added, turning to the White Rabbit. + +There was dead silence in the court whilst the White Rabbit read out the verses. + +"That's the most important piece of evidence we've heard yet," said the King. + +"I don't believe there's an atom of meaning in it," ventured Alice. + +"If there's no meaning in it," said the King, "that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find any. Let the jury consider their verdict." + +"No, no!" said the Queen. "Sentence first—verdict afterwards." + +"Stuff and nonsense!" said Alice loudly. "The idea of having the sentence first!" + + + +"Hold your tongue!" said the Queen, turning purple. + +"I won't!" said Alice. + +"Off with her head!" the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved. + +"Who cares for you?" said Alice (she had grown to her full size by this time). "You're nothing but a pack of cards!" + +At this, the whole pack rose up in the air and came flying down upon her; she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face. + +"Wake up, Alice dear!" said her sister. "Why, what a long sleep you've had!" + +"Oh, I've had such a curious dream!" said Alice. And she told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange adventures of hers that you have just been reading about. Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/text/calvin.txt b/text/calvin.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..951f432 --- /dev/null +++ b/text/calvin.txt @@ -0,0 +1,237 @@ +Calvin and Hobbes is a comic strip written and illustrated by Bill Watterson, following the humorous antics of Calvin, an imaginative six-year old boy, and Hobbes, his energetic and sardonic—albeit stuffed—tiger The pair are named after John Calvin, a 16th century French Reformation theologian, and Thomas Hobbes, a 17th century English political philosopher + +The strip is vaguely set in the contemporary Midwestern United States, on the outskirts of suburbia, a location probably inspired by Watterson's home town of Chagrin Falls, Ohio Calvin and Hobbes appear in most of the strips, while a small number focus on other supporting characters The broad themes of the strip deal with Calvin's flights of fantasy, his friendship with Hobbes, his misadventures, his unique views on a diverse range of political and cultural issues and his relationships and interactions with his parents, classmates, educators, and other members of society The dual nature of Hobbes is also a recurring motif; Calvin sees Hobbes as a live tiger, while other characters see him as a stuffed animal + +Even though the series does not mention specific political figures or current events like political strips such as Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury, it does examine broad issues like environmentalism, public education, and the flaws of opinion polls + +Because of Watterson's strong anti-merchandising stance + +History + +Calvin and Hobbes was conceived when Watterson, having worked in an advertising job he detested, + +The first strip was published on November 18, 1985 and the series quickly became a hit Within a year of syndication, the strip was published in roughly 250 newspapers By April 1, 1987, only sixteen months after the strip began, Watterson and his work were featured in an article by the Los Angeles Times + +Before long, the strip was in wide circulation outside the United States + +Watterson took two extended breaks from writing new strips: from May 1991 to February 1992, and from April through December 1994 + +In 1995, Watterson sent a letter via his syndicate to all editors whose newspapers carried his strip It contained the following: + + I will be stopping Calvin and Hobbes at the end of the year This was not a recent or an easy decision, and I leave with some sadness My interests have shifted however, and I believe I've done what I can do within the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels I am eager to work at a more thoughtful pace, with fewer artistic compromises I have not yet decided on future projects, but my relationship with Universal Press Syndicate will continue That so many newspapers would carry Calvin and Hobbes is an honor I'll long be proud of, and I've greatly appreciated your support and indulgence over the last decade Drawing this comic strip has been a privilege and a pleasure, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity + +The 3,160th and final strip ran on Sunday, December 31, 1995 + + Syndication and Watterson's artistic standards + +From the outset, Watterson found himself at odds with the syndicate, which urged him to begin merchandising the characters and touring the country to promote the first collections of comic strips Watterson refused To him, the integrity of the strip and its artist would be undermined by commercialization, which he saw as a major negative influence in the world of cartoon art + +Watterson also grew increasingly frustrated by the gradual shrinking of available space for comics in the newspapers He lamented that without space for anything more than simple dialogue or spare artwork, comics as an art form were becoming dilute, bland, and unoriginal + +During Watterson's first sabbatical from the strip, Universal Press Syndicate continued to charge newspapers full price to re-run old Calvin and Hobbes strips Few editors approved of the move, but the strip was so popular that they had little choice but to continue to run it for fear that competing newspapers might pick it up and draw its fans away +This half-page layout can easily be rearranged for full, third, and quarter pages +This half-page layout can easily be rearranged for full, third, and quarter pages + +Then, upon Watterson's return, Universal Press announced that Watterson had decided to sell his Sunday strip as an unbreakable half of a newspaper or tabloid page Many editors and even a few cartoonists, such as Bil Keane The Family Circus, criticized him for what they perceived as arrogance and an unwillingness to abide by the normal practices of the cartoon business—a charge that Watterson ignored Watterson had negotiated the deal to allow himself more creative freedom in the Sunday comics Prior to the switch, he had to have a certain number of panels with little freedom as to layout, because in different newspapers the strip would appear at a different width; afterwards, he was free to go with whatever graphic layout he wanted, however unorthodox His frustration with the standard space division requirements is evident in strips before the change; for example, a 1988 Sunday strip published before the deal is one large panel, but with all the action and dialogue in the bottom part of the panel so editors could crop the top part if they wanted to fit the strip into a smaller space Watterson's explanation for the switch: + + I took a sabbatical after resolving a long and emotionally draining fight to prevent Calvin and Hobbes from being merchandised Looking for a way to rekindle my enthusiasm for the duration of a new contract term, I proposed a redesigned Sunday format that would permit more panel flexibility To my surprise and delight, Universal responded with an offer to market the strip as an unbreakable half page more space than I'd dared to ask for, despite the expected resistance of editors To this day, my syndicate assures me that some editors liked the new format, appreciated the difference, and were happy to run the larger strip, but I think it's fair to say that this was not the most common reaction The syndicate had warned me to prepare for numerous cancellations of the Sunday feature, but after a few weeks of dealing with howling, purple-faced editors, the syndicate suggested that papers could reduce the strip to the size tabloid newspapers used for their smaller sheets of paper … I focused on the bright side: I had complete freedom of design and there were virtually no cancellations For all the yelling and screaming by outraged editors, I remain convinced that the larger Sunday strip gave newspapers a better product and made the comics section more fun for readers Comics are a visual medium A strip with a lot of drawing can be exciting and add some variety Proud as I am that I was able to draw a larger strip, I don't expect to see it happen again any time soon In the newspaper business, space is money, and I suspect most editors would still say that the difference is not worth the cost Sadly, the situation is a vicious circle: because there's no room for better artwork, the comics are simply drawn; because they're simply drawn, why should they have more room + +Calvin and Hobbes remained extremely popular after the change and thus Watterson was able to expand his style and technique for the more spacious Sunday strips without losing carriers + + Merchandising + +Bill Watterson is notable for his insistence that cartoon strips should stand on their own as an art form, and he has resisted the use of Calvin and Hobbes in merchandising of any sort This insistence stuck despite the fact that it could have generated millions of dollars per year in additional personal income Watterson explains in a 2005 press release: + + Actually, I wasn't against all merchandising when I started the strip, but each product I considered seemed to violate the spirit of the strip, contradict its message, and take me away from the work I loved If my syndicate had let it go at that, the decision would have taken maybe 30 seconds of my life + +Watterson did ponder animating Calvin and Hobbes, and has expressed admiration for the art form In a 1989 interview in The Comics Journal, Watterson states: + + If you look at the old cartoons by Tex Avery and Chuck Jones, you'll see that there are a lot of things single drawings just can't do Animators can get away with incredible distortion and exaggeration because the animator can control the length of time you see something The bizarre exaggeration barely has time to register, and the viewer doesn’t ponder the incredible license he's witnessed In a comic strip, you just show the highlights of action—you can't show the buildup and release or at least not without slowing down the pace of everything to the point where it's like looking at individual frames of a movie, in which case you've probably lost the effect you were trying to achieve In a comic strip, you can suggest motion and time, but it's very crude compared to what an animator can do I have a real awe for good animation + +After this he was asked if it was "a little scary to think of hearing Calvin's voice" He responded that it was "very scary," and that although he loved the visual possibilities of animation, the thought of casting voice actors to play his characters was uncomfortable He was also unsure whether he wanted to work with an animation team, as he had done all previous work by himself Ultimately, Calvin and Hobbes was never made into an animated series Watterson later stated in the "Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book" that he liked the fact that his strip was a "low-tech, one-man operation," and took great pride in the fact that he drew every line and wrote every word on his own + +Except for the books, two 16-month calendars 1988–1989 and 1989–1990, the textbook Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes, + + Style and influences + +Calvin and Hobbes strips are characterized by sparse but careful craftsmanship, intelligent humor, poignant observations, witty social and political commentary, and well-developed characters Precedents to Calvin's fantasy world can be found in Crockett Johnson's Barnaby, Charles M Schulz's Peanuts, Percy Crosby's Skippy, Berkeley Breathed's Bloom County, and George Herriman's Krazy Kat, while Watterson's use of comics as sociopolitical commentary reaches back to Walt Kelly's Pogo and Quino's Mafalda Schulz and Kelly, in particular, influenced Watterson's outlook on comics during his formative years + +In initial strips, the drawings have a more cartoony, flat, crude, Peanuts-like look; in the recent strips, the drawings are three-dimensional Notable elements of Watterson's artistic style are his characters' diverse and often exaggerated expressions particularly those of Calvin, elaborate and bizarre backgrounds for Calvin's flights of imagination, well-captured kinetics, and frequent visual jokes and metaphors In the later years of the strip, with more space available for his use, Watterson experimented more freely with different panel layouts, art styles, stories without dialogue, and greater use of whitespace He also made a point of not showing certain things explicitly: the "Noodle Incident" and the children's book Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie were left to the reader's imagination, where Watterson was sure they would be “more outrageous” than he could portray + +Watterson's technique started with minimalist pencil sketches drawn with a light pencil though the larger Sunday strips often required more elaborate work; he then would use a small sable brush and India ink on the Strathmore bristol board to complete most of the remaining drawing He also letters dialogue with a Rapidograph fountain pen, and he uses a crowquill pen for odds and ends He whites out the mistakes with Liquid Paper He was careful in his use of color, often spending a great deal of time in choosing the right colors to employ for the weekly Sunday strip When Calvin and Hobbes started, there were 64 colors available for the Sunday strips For the later Sunday strips, Watterson had 125 colors, as well as the ability to fade the colors into each other + + Art and academia + +Watterson used the strip to criticize the artistic world, principally through Calvin's unconventional creations of snowmen but also through other expressions of childhood art When Miss Wormwood complains that he is wasting class time drawing incomprehensible things a Stegosaurus in a rocket ship, for example, Calvin proclaims himself "on the cutting edge of the avant-garde" He begins exploring the medium of snow when a warm day melts his snowman His next sculpture "speaks to the horror of our own mortality, inviting the viewer to contemplate the evanescence of life" In further strips, Calvin's creative instincts diversify to include sidewalk drawings or as he terms them, examples of "suburban postmodernism" + +Watterson also lampooned the academic world In one example, Calvin writes a "revisionist autobiography", recruiting Hobbes to take pictures of him doing stereotypical kid activities like playing sports in order to make him seem more well-adjusted In another strip, he carefully crafts an "artist's statement," claiming that such essays convey more messages than artworks themselves ever do Hobbes blandly notes "You misspelled Weltanschauung" He indulges in what Watterson calls "pop psychobabble" to justify his destructive rampages and shift blame to his parents, citing "toxic codependency" In one instance, he pens a book report based on the theory that the purpose of academic scholarship is to "inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity," entitled The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender Modes Displaying his creation to Hobbes, he remarks, "Academia, here I come!" Watterson explains that he adapted this jargon and similar examples from several other strips from an actual book of art criticism + +Overall, Watterson's satirical essays serve to attack both sides, criticizing both the commercial mainstream and the artists who are supposed to be "outside" it Not long after he began drawing his "Dinosaurs In Rocket Ships" series, Calvin tells Hobbes: + + The hard part for us avant-garde post-modern artists is deciding whether or not to embrace commercialism Do we allow our work to be hyped and exploited by a market that's simply hungry for the next new thing Do we participate in a system that turns high art into low art so it's better suited for mass consumption Of course, when an artist goes commercial, he makes a mockery of his status as an outsider and free thinker He buys into the crass and shallow values art should transcend He trades the integrity of his art for riches and fame Oh, what the heck I'll do it + + Social criticisms + +In addition to his criticisms of art and academia, Watterson often used the strip to comment on American culture and society With rare exception, the strip avoids reference to actual people or events Watterson's commentary is therefore necessarily generalized He expresses frustration with public decadence and apathy, with commercialism, and with the pandering nature of the mass media Calvin is often seen "glued" to the television, while his father speaks with the voice of ascetic virtue, struggling to impart his values to Calvin + +Watterson's vehicle for criticism is often Hobbes, who comments on Calvin's unwholesome habits from a more cynical perspective He is more likely to make a wry observation than actually intervene; he may merely watch as Calvin inadvertently makes the point himself In one instance, Calvin tells Hobbes about a science fiction story he has read in which machines turn humans into zombie slaves Hobbes makes a comment about the irony of machines controlling people instead of the other way around; Calvin then exclaims, "I'll say Hey! What time is it My TV show is on!" and sprints back inside to watch it + +A Sunday, 21 June 1992 strip discussing the Big Bang coined the term "Horrendous Space Kablooie" for the event, a term which has achieved some tongue-in-cheek popularity among the scientific community, particularly in informal discussion and often shortened to "the HSK" + + Visual distortions + +On several occasions, Watterson drew strips with strange visual distortions: inverted colors, objects turning "neo-cubist", or fantasy environments with other unusual physical phenomena Only Calvin is able to perceive these alterations, which seem to illustrate both his own shifting point of view and a typical six-year-old's wild imagination + +In the Tenth Anniversary Book, Watterson explains that some of these strips were metaphors for his own experiences, illustrating, for example, his conflicts with his syndicate: a 1989 Sunday strip, normally in color, was drawn almost entirely in an inverted monochrome Calvin is accused by his father of seeing issues "in black and white"—an accusation sometimes leveled at Watterson regarding his refusal to license the strip—to which Calvin, echoing Watterson's own retort, replies, "Sometimes that's the way things are!" + + Passage of time + +When the strips were originally published, Calvin's settings were seasonally appropriate for the Northern Hemisphere Calvin would be seen building snowmen or sledding during the period from November through February or so, and outside activities such as water balloon fights would replace school from June through August Christmas and Halloween strips were run during those times of year + +Although Watterson depicts several years' worth of holidays, school years, summer vacations, and camping trips, and characters are aware of multiple "current" years such as "'94 model toboggans," "Vote Dad in '88," the '90s as the new decade, etc Calvin is never shown to age, pass to second grade, nor have any birthday celebrations The only birthday ever shown was that of Susie Derkins Such temporal distortions are fairly common among comic strips, as with the children in Peanuts, who existed without aging for decades Likewise, the characters in Krazy Kat celebrate the New Year but never grow old, and young characters like Ignatz Mouse's offspring never seem to grow up These uses of a floating timeline are very unlike series such as Gasoline Alley, Doonesbury and until 2007 For Better or For Worse, in which the characters age each year with their reading audience, get married, and have children + +While Calvin does not grow older in the strip, reference is made in two strips—from November 17 and 18, 1995 ten years since the strip's debut—to Calvin having once been two and three years old and now feeling that "a lifetime of experience has left + + Academic response + +In her book When Toys Come Alive, Lois Rostow Kuznets discusses Calvin and Hobbes in the context of other literature featuring living toys She argues that these toys are examples of transitional objects that mediate childhood experience and the adult world, where Hobbes serves both as a figure of Calvin's childish fantasy life and as an outlet for the expression of libidinous desires more associated with adults She cites, for example, a strip where Hobbes expresses a fantasy of playing "saxophone for an all-girl cabaret in New Orleans" as an example where Hobbes expresses a desire that is more sophisticated and adult than Calvin's frame of reference usually allows Kuznets also looks at Calvin's other fantasies, suggesting that they are a second tier of fantasies utilized in places like school where transitional objects such as Hobbes would not be socially acceptable + +A second line of argument comes from Philip Sandifer, who uses Calvin and Hobbes as the main example for a reading of comic strips based on the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan He draws parallel between Hobbes's status as an imaginary friend and the Lacanian concept of the Imaginary, suggesting that a given comic strip is an attempt to construct a momentary and ephemeral present that will be dismantled by the punchline which he allies with the Lacanian Real, wiping the slate and allowing the process to begin again the next day He suggests that the strip takes place in an eternal present with no real reference to its past, which is erased each day with the punchline so that a new present can be constructed He also looks at the later Sunday strips, which are known for the technical skill Watterson displayed when given a more unrestricted layout, arguing that his layouts are best read not in terms of their use of space but in terms of their depiction of time +Named after the 16th-century theologian, Calvin is an impulsive, sometimes overly creative, imaginative, energetic, curious, intelligent, and often selfish six-year-old, whose last name is never mentioned in the strip Despite his low grades, Calvin has a wide vocabulary range that rivals that of an adult as well as an emerging philosophical mind: + + Calvin: "Dad, are you vicariously living through me in the hope that my accomplishments will validate your mediocre life and in some way compensate for all of the opportunities you botched" + + Calvin's father: "If I were, you can bet I'd be re-evaluating my strategy" + + Calvin later, to his mother: "Mom, Dad keeps insulting me" + +He commonly wears his distinctive red-and-black striped shirt, black pants, magenta socks and white sneakers He is also a compulsive reader of comic books and has a tendency to order items marketed in comic books or on boxes of his favorite cereal, "Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs" Calvin chews gum regularly and subscribes to a magazine called Chewing Throughout the series, he is also revealed to be a "trial and error" sort of person Watterson has described Calvin thus: + + "Calvin is pretty easy to do because he is outgoing and rambunctious and there's not much of a filter between his brain and his mouth" + "I guess he's a little too intelligent for his age The thing that I really enjoy about him is that he has no sense of restraint, he doesn't have the experience yet to know the things that you shouldn't do" + + Hobbes + + Main article: Hobbes Calvin and Hobbes + +Hobbes + +From everyone else's point of view, Hobbes is Calvin's stuffed tiger From Calvin's point of view, however, Hobbes is an anthropomorphic tiger, much larger than Calvin and full of independent attitudes and ideas But when the perspective shifts to any other character, readers again see merely a stuffed animal, usually seated at an off-kilter angle This is, of course, an odd dichotomy, and Watterson explains it thus: + + When Hobbes is a stuffed toy in one panel and alive in the next, I'm juxtaposing the "grown-up" version of reality with Calvin's version, and inviting the reader to decide which is truer + +Hobbes' true nature is made more ambiguous by episodes that seem to attribute real-life consequences to Hobbes's actions One example is his habit of pouncing on Calvin the moment he arrives home from school, an act which always leaves Calvin with bruises and scrapes that are evident to other characters In another incident, Hobbes manages to tie Calvin to a chair in such a way that Calvin's father is unable to understand how he could have done it himself Yet another incident features Hobbes leaving Calvin hanging by the seat of his pants from a tree branch above Calvin's head + +Hobbes is named after the 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who had what Watterson described as "a dim view of human nature" + +Although the first strips clearly show Calvin capturing Hobbes by means of a snare with tuna fish sandwich as the bait, a later comic August 1, 1989 seems to imply that Hobbes is, in fact, older than Calvin, and has been around his whole life Watterson eventually decided that it was not important to establish how Calvin and Hobbes had first met + + Supporting characters + + Main article: Secondary characters in Calvin and Hobbes + + Calvin's family +Calvin's parents, always referred to only as "Mom" and "Dad", or "Dear" to each other +Calvin's parents, always referred to only as "Mom" and "Dad", or "Dear" to each other + +Dad's first appearance: November 18, 1985 Dad's last appearance: December 3, 1995 + +Mom's first appearance: November 26, 1985 Mom's last appearance: December 21, 1995 + +Calvin's mother and father are for the most part typical Middle American middle-class parents Like many other characters in the strip, their relatively down-to-earth and sensible attitudes serve primarily as a foil for Calvin's outlandish behavior At the beginning of the strip, Watterson says some fans were angered by the way Calvin's parents thought of Calvin his father has remarked that he would have preferred a dog instead They are not above the occasional cruelty: his mother provided him with a cigarette to teach him a lesson, and his father often tells him outrageous lies when asked a straight question Calvin's father is a patent attorney; his mother is a stay-at-home mom Both parents go through the entire strip unnamed, except as "Mom" and "Dad," or such nicknames as "hon" and "dear" when referring to each other Watterson has never given Calvin's parents names "because as far as the strip is concerned, they are important only as Calvin's mom and dad" This ended up being somewhat problematic when Calvin's Uncle Max was in the strip for a week and could not refer to the parents by name It was one of the main reasons that Max never reappeared + + +First appearance: December 5, 1985 Last appearance: December 16, 1995 + +Susie Derkins, the only important character with both a given name and a family name, is a classmate of Calvin's who lives in his neighborhood Named for the pet beagle of Watterson's wife's family, she first appeared early in the strip as a new student in Calvin's class In contrast with Calvin, she is polite and diligent in her studies, and her imagination usually seems mild-mannered and civilized, consisting of stereotypical young girl games such as playing house or having tea parties with her stuffed animals Though both of them hate to admit it, Calvin and Susie have quite a bit in common For example, Susie is shown on occasion with a stuffed rabbit dubbed "Mr Bun," and Calvin, of course, has Hobbes Susie also has a mischievous streak, which can be seen when she subverts Calvin's attempts to cheat on school tests by feeding him incorrect answers Watterson admits that Calvin and Susie have a bit of a nascent crush on each other, and that Susie is inspired by the type of woman that he himself finds attractive and eventually married Her relationship with Calvin, though, is frequently conflicted, and never really becomes sorted out + + Miss Wormwood +Miss Wormwood, Calvin's teacher +Miss Wormwood, Calvin's teacher + +First appearance: November 21, 1985 Last appearance: October 30, 1995 unseen speaking appearance on November 6, 1995 + +Miss Wormwood is Calvin's world-weary teacher, named after the apprentice devil in C S Lewis's The Screwtape Letters She perpetually wears polka-dotted dresses, and serves, like others, as a foil to Calvin's mischief Throughout the strip's run, various jokes hint that Miss Wormwood is waiting to retire, takes a lot of medication, and is a heavy smoker and drinker Watterson has said that he has a great deal of sympathy for Miss Wormwood, who is clearly frustrated by trying to keep rowdy children under control so they can learn something + + Rosalyn +Rosalyn, Calvin's babysitter and one-time swim instructor +Rosalyn, Calvin's babysitter and one-time swim instructor + +First appearance: May 15, 1986 Last appearance: September 16, 1995 + +Rosalyn is a teenage high school senior and Calvin's official babysitter whenever Calvin's parents need a night out She is also his swimming instructor in one early sequence of strips She is the only babysitter able to tolerate Calvin's antics, which she uses to demand raises and advances from Calvin's desperate parents She is also, according to Watterson, the only person Calvin truly fears She does not hesitate to play as dirty as he does Calvin and Rosalyn usually do not get along, except in one case where she plays "Calvinball" with him in exchange for him doing his homework Rosalyn's boyfriend, Charlie, never appears in the strip but calls her occasionally while she babysits Originally she was created as a nameless, one-shot character with no plan for her to appear again; however, Watterson decided he wanted to retain her unique ability to intimidate Calvin, which ultimately led to many more appearances + + Moe +Moe, a bully at Calvin's school +Moe, a bully at Calvin's school + +First appearance: January 30, 1986 Last appearance: November 20, 1995 + +Moe is the archetypical bully character in Calvin and Hobbes, "a six-year-old who shaves," who always shoves Calvin against walls, demands his lunch money, and calls him "Twinky" Moe is the only regular character who speaks in an unusual font: his frequently monosyllabic dialogue is shown in crude, lower-case letters Watterson describes Moe as "big, dumb, ugly and cruel," and a summation of "every jerk I've ever known" While Moe is not smart, he is, as Calvin puts it, streetwise: "That means he knows what street he lives on" + + +Principal Spittle is the principal at Calvin's school It has been implied that, as with Miss Wormwood, Calvin's behavior is the main reason Spittle dislikes his job; Calvin has been to Spittle's office enough times that his file of transgressions is the thickest in the entire district Spittle's appearances typically come in the last panel of strips that show Calvin misbehaving in class and being sent to his office, where he serves as a foil for Calvin's outlandish excuses for his antics + +The strip primarily focuses on Calvin, Hobbes, and the above mentioned secondary characters Other characters who have appeared in multiple storylines include Calvin's family doctor whom Calvin frequently gives a hard time during his check-ups, the barber, and the extraterrestrials Galaxoid and Nebular + +Calvin imagines himself as a great many things, including dinosaurs, elephants, jungle-farers and superheroes Four of his alter egos are well-defined and recurring: As "Stupendous Man", he pictures himself as a superhero in disguise, wearing a mask and a cape made by his mother, and narrating his own adventures Stupendous Man almost always "suffers defeat" to his opponent, usually Calvin's mother "Spaceman Spiff" is a heroic spacefarer As Spiff, Calvin battles aliens typically his parents or teacher and travels to distant planets his house, school, or neighborhood "Tracer Bullet," a hardboiled private eye, says he has eight slugs in him: "one's lead, and the rest are bourbon" In one story, Bullet is called to a case, in which a "pushy dame" Calvin's mother accuses him of destroying an expensive lamp broken as a result of an indoor football game between Calvin and Hobbes When Calvin imagines himself as a dinosaur, he is usually either a Tyrannosaurus rex, or an Allosaurus When Calvin daydreams about being these alter egos during school, Miss Wormwood often whacks his desk with a pointer to shock him back to attention + +There are several repeating themes in the work, a few involving Calvin's real life, and many stemming from his imagination Some of the latter are clearly flights of fantasy, while others, like Hobbes, are of an apparently dual nature and do not quite work when presumed real or unreal + +Over the years Calvin has had several adventures involving corrugated cardboard boxes which he adapts for many different uses Some of his many uses of cardboard boxes include: + + Transmogrifier + Flying time machine + Duplicator with ethicator enhancement + Atomic Cerebral Enhance-O-Tron + Emergency GROSS meeting "box of secrecy" + A stand for selling things, such as "lemonade" + +Building the Transmogrifier is accomplished by turning a cardboard box upside-down, attaching an arrow to the side and writing a list of choices on the box to turn into anything not stated on the box, the name is written on the remaining space Upon turning the arrow to a particular choice and pushing a button, the transmogrifier instantaneously rearranges the subject's "chemical configuration" accompanied by a loud zap + +The Duplicator is also made from a cardboard box, turned on its side Instead of the transmogrifier's "zap" sound, it makes a "boink" The title of one of the collections, "Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink'", quotes a phrase that Hobbes utters upon hearing the Duplicator in operation The Duplicator produces copies of Calvin, which initially turn out to be as problematic and independent as Calvin + +The Time Machine is also made from the same box, this time with its open side up Passengers climb into the open top, and must be wearing protective goggles while in time-warp Calvin first intends to travel to the future and obtain future technology that he could use to become rich in the present time Unfortunately, he faces the wrong way as he steers and ends up in prehistoric times + +The Atomic Cerebral Enhance-O-Tron is also fashioned from the same cardboard box, turned upside-down, but with three strings attached to it which are used for input, output, and grounding; the grounding string functions like a lightning rod for brainstorms so Calvin can keep his ideas "grounded in reality" The strings are tied to a metal colander, which is worn on the head When used, the wearer of the cap receives a boost in intelligence, and his head becomes enlarged The intelligence boost, however, is temporary When it wears off, the subject's head reverts to its normal size Calvin creates the Cerebral Enhance-O-Tron in order to be able to come up with a topic for his homework + +Other kids' games are all such a bore! +They've gotta have rules and they gotta keep score! +Calvinball is better by far! +It's never the same! It's always bizarre! +You don't need a team or a referee! +You know that it's great, 'cause it's named after me! + +Calvinball is a game played by Calvin and Hobbes as a rebellion against organized team sports; according to Hobbes, "No sport is less organized than Calvinball!" + +The only consistent rule is that Calvinball may never be played with the same rules twice Calvinball is essentially a game of wits and creativity rather than stamina or athletic skill, a prominent nomic self-modifying game, and one where Hobbes usually outwits Calvin himself + +Calvin and Hobbes frequently ride downhill in a wagon, sled, or toboggan, depending on the season, as a device to add some physical comedy to the strip and because, according to Watterson, "it's a lot more interesting + +During winter, Calvin often engages in snowball fights with Hobbes or Susie, who frequently best him due to their own wit or Calvin's unreliable aim Calvin is attentive to the craft of making a good snowball or slushball, but his delight in hitting Susie in the back of the head with a well-aimed snowball is often tempered by his anxiousness to remain on Santa's "good" list at Christmas time + +Calvin is also very talented and creative at building snowmen, but he usually puts them in scenes that depict the snowmen dying or suffering in grotesque ways In one scene Calvin builds a row of saluting snowmen as a means to humiliate his dad as he returns from work "He knows I hate this," says his father as he proceeds up the front walk In another, to retaliate Susie's creation of a "snowwoman", he decides to create an "anatomically correct" snowman in the front yard His creations tend to alarm his parents due to their macabre nature In a notable storyline, Calvin builds a snowman and brings it to life in a manner reminiscent of Frankenstein's monster, and which proceeds to create more of its own kind This storyline gave the title to the Calvin and Hobbes book Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons, after the name Calvin gives to the first creature and its compatriots in the story + +Calvin, unlike Hobbes, thinks of snowmen as fine art, worthy of highbrow criticism and expensive pricing Bill Watterson has said that this is a parody of art's "pretentious blowhards" + +Calvin is confronted every year with Christmas, as his mischievous nature conflicts with his greed for presents from Santa Claus which requires that he behave Calvin frets continually during the Christmas season, sometimes devising strategy by which to fool Santa Claus into giving him gifts Calvin's list of desired "loot," as he terms Christmas presents, is implied to include "incendiary weapons", of which some examples are given atom bombs, torpedoes, a heat-seeking guided missile, grenade launcher, etc in dialogue Most Christmas sequences of strips depict Calvin's parents playing the role of Santa Claus by secretly placing presents beneath the Christmas Tree or in Calvin's stocking; however, one later Sunday strip depicted Santa Claus discussing Calvin's list and history with one of his assistants, although the "reality" of this is left undefined Occasionally, a Christmas strip depicts some kindness shown by Calvin to Hobbes, as if to comment on the morals perceived as being part of the Christmas holiday One Sunday strip appeared as a poem entitled "Christmas Eve", featuring a described scene of Calvin sleeping beside Hobbes between the Christmas Tree and a fire + +GROSS is Calvin's secret club, whose sole purpose is to exclude girls generally, and Susie Derkins specifically The name is an acronym that stands for Get Rid Of Slimy girlS Calvin admits "slimy girls" is a bit redundant, as all girls are slimy, "but otherwise it doesn't spell anything" GROSS is headquartered in a tree house Hobbes can climb up to the tree house, but Calvin requires a rope Hobbes refuses to drop down the rope until Calvin has said the password, which is an ode to tigers that is over eight verses long and occasionally accompanied by a dance Calvin and Hobbes are its only members, and each takes up multiple official titles while wearing newspaper chapeaux during meetings Most commonly, Calvin's title is Dictator-For-Life, and Hobbes is President and First Tiger The club has an anthem, but most of its words are unknown to outsiders Calvin often awards badges, promotions, etc, such as "Bottle Caps of Valor" Many GROSS plans to annoy or otherwise attack Susie end in failure, while many meetings end in a Calvinball-style battle of rule changes or promotion granting, before degenerating into a brawl + +Both the Noodle Incident and the book Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie are mentioned several times in passing, but Watterson left the details to the reader's imagination "where + +More details are given regarding Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie: it is a fictional children's book written by Mabel Syrup, it has a sequel titled Commander Coriander Salamander and 'er Singlehander Bellylander, and it is best performed with squeaky voices, gooshy sound effects, and the "Happy Hamster Hop" In its first appearance, Calvin's dad recommended it to Calvin although Calvin was reluctant due to the fact there was not an animated adaptation of it, but nearly all subsequent references to the book show Calvin's dad's frustration at having to read the story to Calvin every evening + +There are eighteen Calvin and Hobbes books, published from 1987 to 2005 These include eleven collections, which form a complete archive of the newspaper strips, except for a single daily strip from November 28, 1985 the collections do contain a strip for this date, but it is not the same strip that appeared in some newspapers The alternate strip, a joke about Hobbes taking a bath in the washing machine, has circulated around the Internet Treasuries usually combine the two preceding collections albeit leaving out some strips with bonus material and include color reprints of Sunday comics + +Watterson included a unique Easter egg in The Essential Calvin and Hobbes The back cover is a scene of a giant Calvin rampaging through a town The scene is in fact a faithful reproduction of the town square actually a triangle in Watterson's home town of Chagrin Falls, Ohio The giant Calvin has uprooted and is holding in his hands the Popcorn Shop, a small, iconic candy and ice cream shop overlooking the town's namesake falls + +A complete collection of Calvin and Hobbes strips, in three hardcover volumes with a total 1440 pages, was released on October 4, 2005, by Andrews McMeel Publishing It also includes color prints of the art used on paperback covers, the treasuries' extra illustrated stories and poems, and a new introduction by Bill Watterson The alternate 1985 strip is still omitted, and two other strips January 7, 1987, and November 25, 1988 have altered dialog + +To celebrate the release which coincided with the strip's ten year absence in newspapers and the twentieth anniversary of the strip, Calvin and Hobbes reruns were made available to newspapers from Sunday, September 4, 2005, through Saturday, December 31, 2005, + +Early books were printed in smaller format in black and white; these were later reproduced in twos in color in the "Treasuries" Essential, Authoritative, and Indispensable, except for the contents of Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons Those Sunday strips were never reprinted in color until the Complete collection was finally published in 2005 Every book since Snow Goons has been printed in a larger format with Sundays in color and weekday and Saturday strips larger than they appeared in most newspapers Watterson also claims he named the books the "Essential, Authoritative, and Indispensable" because as he says in The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book, the books are "obviously none of these things" + +Remaining books do contain some additional content; for instance, The Calvin and Hobbes Lazy Sunday Book contains a long watercolor Spaceman Spiff epic not seen elsewhere until Complete, and The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book contains much original commentary from Watterson Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages 1985–1995 contains 36 Sunday strips in color alongside Watterson's original sketches, prepared for an exhibition at The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library + +An officially licensed children's textbook entitled Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes was published in a limited single print-run in 1993 The book includes various Calvin and Hobbes strips together with lessons and questions to follow, such as, "What do you think the principal meant when he said they had quite a file on Calvin" 108 The book is very rare and increasingly sought by collectors \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/text/kant.txt b/text/kant.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e16a50c --- /dev/null +++ b/text/kant.txt @@ -0,0 +1,154 @@ +We have now completely before us the dialectic play of cosmological ideas. The ideas are such that an object congruent with them can never be given in any possible experience, and that even in thought reason is unable to bring them into harmony with the universal laws of nature. Yet they are not arbitrarily conceived. Reason, in the continuous advance of empirical synthesis, is necessarily led up to them whenever it endeavours to free from all conditions and apprehend in its unconditioned totality that which according to the rules of experience can never be determined save as conditioned. + +These pseudo-rational assertions are so many attempts to solve four natural and unavoidable problems of reason. There are just so many, neither more nor fewer, owing to the fact that there are just four series of synthetic presuppositions which impose a priori limitations on the empirical synthesis. + +The proud pretensions of reason, when it strives to extend its domain beyond all limits of experience, we have represented only in dry formulas that contain merely the ground of their legal claims. As befits a transcendental philosophy, they have been divested of all empirical features, although only in connection therewith can their full splendour be displayed. But in this empirical application, and in the progressive extension of the employment of reason, philosophy, beginning with the field of our experiences and steadily soaring to these lofty ideas, displays a dignity and worth such that, could it but make good its pretensions, it would leave all other human science far behind. For it promises a secure foundation for our highest expectations in respect of those ultimate ends towards which all the endeavours of reason must ultimately converge. + +Whether the world has a beginning [in time] and any limit to its extension in space; whether there is anywhere, and perhaps in my thinking self, an indivisible and indestructible unity, or nothing but what is divisible and transitory; whether I am free in my actions or, like other beings, am led by the hand of nature and of fate; whether finally there is a supreme cause of the world, or whether the things of nature and their order must as the ultimate object terminate thought — an object that even in our speculations can never be transcended: these are questions for the solution of which the mathematician would gladly exchange the whole of his science. For mathematics can yield no satisfaction in regard to those highest ends that most closely concern humanity. And yet the very dignity of mathematics (that pride of human reason) rests upon this, that it guides reason to knowledge of nature in its order and regularity — alike in what is great in it and in what is small — and in the extraordinary unity of its moving forces, thus rising to a degree of insight far beyond what any philosophy based on ordinary experience would lead us to expect; and so gives occasion and encouragement to an employment of reason that is extended beyond all experience, and at the same time supplies it with the most excellent materials for supporting its investigations — so far as the character of these permits — by appropriate intuitions. + +Unfortunately for speculation, though fortunately perhaps for the practical interests of humanity, reason, in the midst of its highest expectations, finds itself so compromised by the conflict of opposing arguments, that neither its honour nor its security allows it to withdraw and treat the quarrel with indifference as a mere mock fight; and still less is it in a position to command peace, being itself directly interested in the matters in dispute. Accordingly, nothing remains for reason save to consider whether the origin of this conflict, whereby it is divided against itself, may not have arisen from a mere misunderstanding. In such an enquiry both parties, per chance, may have to sacrifice proud claims; but a lasting and peaceful reign of reason over understanding and the senses would thereby be inaugurated. + +For the present we shall defer this thorough enquiry, in order first of all to consider upon which side we should prefer to fight, should we be compelled to make choice between the opposing parties. The raising of this question, how we should proceed if we consulted only our interest and not the logical criterion of truth, will decide nothing in regard to the contested rights of the two parties, but has this advantage, that it enables us to comprehend why the participants in this quarrel, though not influenced by any superior insight into the matter under dispute, have preferred to fight on one side rather than on the other. It will also cast light on a number of incidental points, for instance, the passionate zeal of the one party and the calm assurance of the other; and will explain why the world hails the one with eager approval, and is implacably prejudiced against the other. + +Comparison of the principles which form the starting-points of the two parties is what enables us, as we shall find, to determine the standpoint from which alone this preliminary enquiry can be carried out with the required thoroughness. In the assertions of the antithesis we observe a perfect uniformity in manner of thinking and complete unity of maxims, namely a principle of pure empiricism, applied not only in explanation of the appearances within the world, but also in the solution of the transcendental ideas of the world itself, in its totality. The assertions of the thesis, on the other hand, pre-suppose, in addition to the empirical mode of explanation employed within the series of appearances, intelligible beginnings; and to this extent its maxim is complex. But as its essential and distinguishing characteristic is the presupposition of intelligible beginnings, I shall entitle it the dogmatism of pure reason. + +In the determination of the cosmological ideas, we find on the side of dogmatism, that is, of the thesis: First, a certain practical interest in which every right-thinking man, if he has understanding of what truly concerns him, heartily shares. That the world has a beginning, that my thinking self is of simple and therefore indestructible nature, that it is free in its voluntary actions and raised above the compulsion of nature, and finally that all order in the things constituting the world is due to a primordial being, from which everything derives its unity and purposive connection — these are so many foundation stones of morals and religion. The antithesis robs us of all these supports, or at least appears to do so. + +Secondly, reason has a speculative interest on the side of the thesis. When the transcendental ideas are postulated and employed in the manner prescribed by the thesis, the entire chain of conditions and the derivation of the conditioned can be grasped completely a priori. For we then start from the unconditioned. This is not done by the antithesis, which for this reason is at a very serious disadvantage. To the question as to the conditions of its synthesis it can give no answer which does not lead to the endless renewal of the same enquiry. + +According to the antithesis, every given beginning compels us to advance to one still higher; every part leads to a still smaller part; every event is preceded by another event as its cause; and the conditions of existence in general rest always again upon other conditions, without ever obtaining unconditioned footing and support in any self-subsistent thing, viewed as primordial being. + +Thirdly, the thesis has also the advantage of popularity; and this certainly forms no small part of its claim to favour. + +The common understanding finds not the least difficulty in the idea of the unconditioned beginning of all synthesis. Being more accustomed to descend to consequences than to ascend to grounds, it does not puzzle over the possibility of the absolutely first; on the contrary, it finds comfort in such concepts, and at the same time a fixed point to which the thread by which it guides its movements can be attached. In the restless ascent from the conditioned to the condition, always with one foot in the air, there can be no satisfaction. + +In the determination of the cosmological ideas we find on the side of empiricism, that is, of the antithesis: first, no such practical interest (due to pure principles of reason) as is provided for the thesis by morals and religion. On the contrary, pure empiricism appears to deprive them of all power and influence. If there is no primordial being distinct from the world, if the world is without beginning and therefore without an Author, if our will is not free, and the soul is divisible and perishable like matter, moral ideas and principles lose all validity, and share in the fate of the transcendental ideas which served as their theoretical support. + +But secondly, in compensation, empiricism yields advantages to the speculative interest of reason, which are very attractive and far surpass those which dogmatic teaching bearing on the ideas of reason can offer. According to the principle of empiricism the understanding is always on its own proper ground, namely, the field of genuinely possible experiences, investigating their laws, and by means of these laws affording indefinite extension to the sure and comprehensible knowledge which it supplies. Here every object, both in itself and in its relations, can and ought to be represented in intuition, or at least in concepts for which the corresponding images can be clearly and distinctly provided in given similar intuitions. There is no necessity to leave the chain of the natural order and to resort to ideas, the objects of which are not known, because, as mere thought-entities, they can never be given. Indeed, the understanding is not permitted to leave its proper business, and under the pretence of having brought it to completion to pass over into the sphere of idealising reason and of transcendent concepts — a sphere in which it is no longer necessary for it to observe and investigate in accordance with the laws of nature, but only to think and to invent in the assurance that it cannot be refuted by the facts of nature, not being bound by the evidence which they yield, but presuming to pass them by or even to subordinate them to a higher authority, namely, that of pure reason. + +The empiricist will never allow, therefore, that any epoch of nature is to be taken as the absolutely first, or that any limit of his insight into the extent of nature is to be regarded as the widest possible. Nor does he permit any transition from the objects of nature — which he can analyse through observation and mathematics, and synthetically determine in intuition (the extended) — to those which neither sense nor imagination can ever represent in concreto (the simple). Nor will he admit the legitimacy of assuming in nature itself any power that operates independently of the laws of nature (freedom), and so of encroaching upon the business of the understanding, which is that of investigating, according to necessary rules, the origin of appearances. And, lastly, he will not grant that a cause ought ever to be sought outside nature, in an original being. We know nothing but nature, since it alone can present objects to us and instruct us in regard to their laws. + +If the empirical philosopher had no other purpose in propounding his antithesis than to subdue the rashness and presumption of those who so far misconstrue the true vocation of reason as to boast of insight and knowledge just where true insight and knowledge cease, and to represent as furthering speculative interests that which is valid only in relation to practical interests (in order, as may suit their convenience, to break the thread of physical enquiries, and then under the pretence of extending knowledge to fasten it to transcendental ideas, through which we really know only that we know nothing); if, I say, the empiricist were satisfied with this, his principle would be a maxim urging moderation in our pretensions, modesty in our assertions, and yet at the same time the greatest possible extension of our understanding, through the teacher fittingly assigned to us, namely, through experience. If such were our procedure, we should not be cut off from employing intellectual presuppositions and faith on behalf of our practical interest; only they could never be permitted to assume the title and dignity of science and rational insight. Knowledge, which as such is speculative, can have no other object than that supplied by experience; if we transcend the limits thus imposed, the synthesis which seeks, independently of experience, new species of knowledge, lacks that substratum of intuition upon which alone it can be exercised. + +But when empiricism itself, as frequently happens, becomes dogmatic in its attitude towards ideas, and confidently denies whatever lies beyond the sphere of its intuitive knowledge, it betrays the same lack of modesty; and this is all the more reprehensible owing to the irreparable injury which is thereby caused to the practical interests of reason. + +The contrast between the teaching of Epicurus and that of Plato is of this nature. + +Each of the two types of philosophy says more than it knows. The former encourages and furthers knowledge, though to the prejudice of the practical; the latter supplies excellent practical principles, but it permits reason to indulge in ideal explanations of natural appearances, in regard to which a speculative knowledge is alone possible to us — to the neglect of physical investigation. + +Finally, as regards the third factor which has to be considered in a preliminary choice between the two conflicting parties, it is extremely surprising that empiricism should be so universally unpopular. The common understanding, it might be supposed, would eagerly adopt a programme which promises to satisfy it through exclusively empirical knowledge and the rational connections there revealed — in preference to the transcendental dogmatism which compels it to rise to concepts far outstripping the insight and rational faculties of the most practised thinkers. But this is precisely what commends such dogmatism to the common understanding. For it then finds itself in a position in which the most learned can claim no advantage over it. If it understands little or nothing about these matters, no one can boast of understanding much more; and though in regard to them it cannot express itself in so scholastically correct a manner as those with special training, nevertheless there is no end to the plausible arguments which it can propound, wandering as it does amidst mere ideas, about which no one knows anything, and in regard to which it is therefore free to be as eloquent as it pleases; whereas when matters that involve the investigation of nature are in question, it has to stand silent and to admit its ignorance. Thus indolence and vanity combine in sturdy support of these principles. Besides, although the philosopher finds it extremely hard to accept a principle for which he can give no justification, still more to employ concepts the objective reality of which he is unable to establish, nothing is more usual in the case of the common understanding. It insists upon having something from which it can make a confident start. The difficulty of even conceiving this presupposed starting-point does not disquiet it. Since it is unaware what conceiving really means, it never occurs to it to reflect upon the assumption; it accepts as known whatever is familiar to it through frequent use. For the common understanding, indeed, all speculative interests pale before the practical; and it imagines that it comprehends and knows what its fears or hopes incite it to assume or to believe. + +Thus empiricism is entirely devoid of the popularity of transcendentally idealising reason; and however prejudicial such empiricism may be to the highest practical principles, there is no need to fear that it will ever pass the limits of the Schools, and acquire any considerable influence in the general life or any real favour among the multitude. + +Human reason is by nature architectonic. That is to say, it regards all our knowledge as belonging to a possible system, and therefore allows only such principles as do not at any rate make it impossible for any knowledge that we may attain to combine into a system with other knowledge. But the propositions of the antithesis are of such a kind that they render the completion of the edifice of knowledge quite impossible. They maintain that there is always to be found beyond every state of the world a more ancient state, in every part yet other parts similarly divisible, prior to every event still another event which itself again is likewise generated, and that in existence in general everything is conditioned, an unconditioned and first existence being nowhere discernible. Since, therefore, the antithesis thus refuses to admit as first or as a beginning anything that could serve as a foundation for building, a complete edifice of knowledge is, on such assumptions, altogether impossible. Thus the architectonic interest of reason — the demand not for empirical but for pure a priori unity of reason — forms a natural recommendation for the assertions of the thesis. + +If men could free themselves from all such interests, and consider the assertions of reason irrespective of their consequences, solely in view of the intrinsic force of their grounds, and were the only way of escape from their perplexities to give adhesion to one or other of the opposing parties, their state would be one of continuous vacillation. To-day it would be their conviction that the human will is free; tomorrow, dwelling in reflection upon the indissoluble chain of nature, they would hold that freedom is nothing but self-deception, that everything is simply nature. If, however, they were summoned to action, this play of the merely speculative reason would, like a dream, at once cease, and they would choose their principles exclusively in accordance with practical interests. Since, however, it is fitting that a reflective and enquiring being should devote a certain amount of time to the examination of his own reason, entirely divesting himself of all partiality and openly submitting his observations to the judgment of others, no one can be blamed for, much less prohibited from, presenting for trial the two opposing parties, leaving them, terrorised by no threats, to defend themselves as best they can, before a jury of like standing with themselves, that is, before a jury of fallible men. +§ 4 +THE ABSOLUTE NECESSITY OF A SOLUTION OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL PROBLEMS OF PURE REASON + +To profess to solve all problems and to answer all questions would be impudent boasting, and would argue such extravagant self-conceit as at once to forfeit all confidence. Nevertheless there are sciences the very nature of which requires that every question arising within their domain should be completely answerable in terms of what is known, inasmuch as the answer must issue from the same sources from which the question proceeds. In these sciences it is not permissible to plead unavoidable ignorance; the solution can be demanded. + +We must be able, in every possible case, in accordance with a rule, to know what is right and what is wrong, since this concerns our obligation, and we have no obligation to that which we cannot know. In the explanation of natural appearances, on the other hand, much must remain uncertain and many questions insoluble, because what we know of nature is by no means sufficient, in all cases, to account for what has to be explained. The question, therefore, is whether in transcendental philosophy there is any question relating to an object presented to pure reason which is unanswerable by this reason, and whether we may rightly excuse ourselves from giving a decisive answer. In thus excusing ourselves, we should have to show that any knowledge which we can acquire still leaves us in complete uncertainty as to what should be ascribed to the object, and that while we do indeed have a concept sufficient to raise a question, we are entirely lacking in materials or power to answer the same. + +Now I maintain that transcendental philosophy is unique in the whole field of speculative knowledge, in that no question which concerns an object given to pure reason can be insoluble for this same human reason, and that no excuse of an unavoidable ignorance, or of the problem's unfathomable depth, can release us from the obligation to answer it thoroughly and completely. That very concept which puts us in a position to ask the question must also qualify us to answer it, since, as in the case of right and wrong, the object is not to be met with outside the concept. + +In transcendental philosophy, however, the only questions to which we have the right to demand a sufficient answer bearing on the constitution of the object, and from answering which the philosopher is not permitted to excuse himself on the plea of their impenetrable obscurity, are the cosmological. + +These questions [bearing on the constitution of the object] must refer exclusively to cosmological ideas. For the object must be given empirically, the question being only as to its conformity to an idea. If, on the other hand, the object is transcendental, and therefore itself unknown; if, for instance, the question be whether that something, the appearance of which (in ourselves) is thought (soul), is in itself a simple being, whether there is an absolutely necessary cause of all things, and so forth, what we have then to do is in each case to seek an object for our idea; and we may well confess that this object is unknown to us, though not therefore impossible. + +[Although to the question, what is the constitution of a transcendental object, no answer can be given stating what it is, we can yet reply that the question itself is nothing, because there is no given object corresponding to it. Accordingly all questions dealt with in the transcendental doctrine of the soul are answerable in this latter manner, and have indeed been so answered; its questions refer to the transcendental subject of all inner appearances, which is not itself appearance and consequently not given as object, and in which none of the categories (and it is to them that the question is really directed) meet with the conditions required for their application. We have here a case where the common saying holds, that no answer is itself an answer. A question as to the constitution of that something which cannot be thought through any determinate predicate — inasmuch as it is completely outside the sphere of those objects which can be given to us — is entirely null and void.] + +The cosmological ideas alone have the peculiarity that they can presuppose their object, and the empirical synthesis required for its concept, as being given. The question which arises out of these ideas refers only to the advance in this synthesis, that is, whether it should be carried so far as to contain absolute totality — such totality, since it cannot be given in any experience, being no longer empirical. Since we are here dealing solely with a thing as object of a possible experience, not as a thing in itself, the answer to the transcendent cosmological question cannot lie anywhere save in the idea. We are not asking what is the constitution of any object in itself, nor as regards possible experience are we enquiring what can be given in concreto in any experience. Our sole question is as to what lies in the idea, to which the empirical synthesis can do no more than merely approximate; the question must therefore be capable of being solved entirely from the idea. + +Since the idea is a mere creature of reason, reason cannot disclaim its responsibility and saddle it upon the unknown object. + +It is not so extraordinary as at first seems the case, that a science should be in a position to demand and expect none but assured answers to all the questions within its domain (quaestiones domesticae), although up to the present they have perhaps not been found. In addition to transcendental philosophy, there are two pure rational sciences, one purely speculative, the other with a practical content, namely, pure mathematics and pure ethics. Has it ever been suggested that, because of our necessary ignorance of the conditions, it must remain uncertain what exact relation, in rational or irrational numbers, a diameter bears to a circle? Since no adequate solution in terms of rational numbers is possible, and no solution in terms of irrational numbers has yet been discovered, it was concluded that at least the impossibility of a solution can be known with certainty, and of this impossibility Lambert has given the required proof. In the universal principles of morals nothing can be uncertain, because the principles are either altogether void and meaningless, or must be derived from the concepts of our reason. In natural science, on the other hand, there is endless conjecture, and certainty is not to be counted upon. For the natural appearances are objects which are given to us independently of our concepts, and the key to them lies not in us and our pure thinking, but outside us; and therefore in many cases, since the key is not to be found, an assured solution is not to be expected. I am not, of course, here referring to those questions of the Transcendental Analytic which concern the deduction of our pure knowledge; we are at present treating only of the certainty of judgments with respect to their objects and not with respect to the source of our concepts themselves. + +The obligation of an at least critical solution of the questions which reason thus propounds to itself, we cannot, therefore, escape by complaints of the narrow limits of our reason, and by confessing, under the pretext of a humility based on self-knowledge, that it is beyond the power of our reason to determine whether the world exists from eternity or has a beginning; whether cosmical space is filled with beings to infinitude, or is enclosed within certain limits; whether anything in the world is simple, or everything such as to be infinitely divisible; whether there is generation and production through freedom, or whether everything depends on the chain of events in the natural order; and finally whether there exists any being completely unconditioned and necessary in itself, or whether everything is conditioned in its existence and therefore dependent on external things and itself contingent. All these questions refer to an object which can be found nowhere save in our thoughts, namely, to the absolutely unconditioned totality of the synthesis of appearances. If from our own concepts we are unable to assert and determine anything certain, we must not throw the blame upon the object as concealing itself from us. Since such an object is nowhere to be met with outside our idea, it is not possible for it to be given. The cause of failure we must seek in our idea itself. For so long as we obstinately persist in assuming that there is an actual object corresponding to the idea, the problem, as thus viewed, allows of no solution. A clear exposition of the dialectic which lies within our concept itself would soon yield us complete certainty how we ought to judge in reference to such a question. + +The pretext that we are unable to obtain certainty in regard to these problems can be at once met with the following question which certainly calls for a clear answer: Whence come those ideas, the solution of which involves us in such difficulty? Is it, perchance, appearances that demand explanation, and do we, in accordance with these ideas, have to seek only the principles or rules of their exposition? Even if we suppose the whole of nature to be spread out before us, and that of all that is presented to our intuition nothing is concealed from our senses and consciousness, yet still through no experience could the object of our ideas be known by us in concreto. For that purpose, in addition to this exhaustive intuition, we should require what is not possible through any empirical knowledge, namely, a completed synthesis and the consciousness of its absolute totality. Accordingly our question does not require to be raised in the explanation of any given appearance, and is therefore not a question which can be regarded as imposed on us by the object itself. The object can never come before us, since it cannot be given through any possible experience. In all possible perceptions we always remain involved in conditions, whether in space or in time, and come upon nothing unconditioned requiring us to determine whether this unconditioned is to be located in an absolute beginning of synthesis, or in an absolute totality of a series that has no beginning. + +In its empirical meaning, the term 'whole' is always only comparative. The absolute whole of quantity (the universe), the whole of division, of derivation, of the condition of existence in general, with all questions as to whether it is brought about through finite synthesis or through a synthesis requiring infinite extension, have nothing to do with any possible experience. + +We should not, for instance, in any wise be able to explain the appearances of a body better, or even differently, in assuming that it consisted either of simple or of inexhaustibly composite parts; for neither a simple appearance nor an infinite composition can ever come before us. Appearances demand explanation only so far as the conditions of their explanation are given in perception; but all that may ever be given in this way, when taken together in an absolute whole, is not itself a perception. Yet it is just the explanation of this very whole that is demanded in the transcendental problems of reason. + +Thus the solution of these problems can never be found in experience, and this is precisely the reason why we should not say that it is uncertain what should be ascribed to the object [of our idea]. For as our object is only in our brain, and cannot be given outside it, we have only to take care to be at one with ourselves, and to avoid that amphiboly which transforms our idea into a supposed representation of an object that is empirically given and therefore to be known according to the laws of experience. The dogmatic solution is therefore not only uncertain, but impossible. The critical solution, which allows of complete certainty, does not consider the question objectively, but in relation to the foundation of the knowledge upon which the question is based. +§ 5 +SCEPTICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE COSMOLOGICAL QUESTIONS IN THE FOUR TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS + +We should of ourselves desist from the demand that our questions be answered dogmatically, if from the start we understood that whatever the dogmatic answer might turn out to be it would only increase our ignorance, and cast us from one inconceivability into another, from one obscurity into another still greater, and perhaps even into contradictions. If our question is directed simply to a yes or no, we are well advised to leave aside the supposed grounds of the answer, and first consider what we should gain according as the answer is in the affirmative or in the negative. Should we then find that in both cases the outcome is mere nonsense, there will be good reason for instituting a critical examination of our question, to determine whether the question does not itself rest on a groundless presupposition, in that it plays with an idea the falsity of which can be more easily detected through study of its application and consequences than in its own separate representation. + +This is the great utility of the sceptical mode of dealing with the questions which pure reason puts to pure reason. By its means we can deliver ourselves, at but a small cost, from a great body of sterile dogmatism, and set in its place a sober critique, which as a true cathartic will effectively guard us against such groundless beliefs and the supposed polymathy to which they lead. + +If therefore, in dealing with a cosmological idea, I were able to appreciate beforehand that whatever view may be taken of the unconditioned in the successive synthesis of appearances, it must either be too large or too small for any concept of the understanding, I should be in a position to understand that since the cosmological idea has no bearing save upon an object of experience which has to be in conformity with a possible concept of the understanding, it must be entirely empty and without meaning; for its object, view it as we may, cannot be made to agree with it. This is in fact the case with all cosmical concepts; and this is why reason, so long as it holds to them, is involved in an unavoidable antinomy. For suppose: — + +First, that the world has no beginning: it is then too large for our concept, which, consisting as it does in a successive regress, can never reach the whole eternity that has elapsed. Or suppose that the world has a beginning, it will then, in the necessary empirical regress, be too small for the concept of the understanding. For since the beginning still presupposes a time which precedes it, it is still not unconditioned; and the law of the empirical employment of the understanding therefore obliges us to look for a higher temporal condition; and the world [as limited in time] is therefore obviously too small for this law. + +This is also true of the twofold answer to the question regarding the magnitude of the world in space. If it is infinite and unlimited, it is too large for any possible empirical concept. If it is finite and limited, we have a right to ask what determines these limits. Empty space is no self-subsistent correlate of things, and cannot be a condition at which we could stop; still less can it be an empirical condition, forming part of a possible experience. (For how can there be any experience of the absolutely void? ) And yet to obtain absolute totality in the empirical synthesis it is always necessary that the unconditioned be an empirical concept. Consequently, a limited world is too small for our concept. + +Secondly, if every appearance in space (matter) consists of infinitely many parts, the regress in the division will always be too large for our concept; while if the division of space is to stop at any member of the division (the simple), the regress will be too small for the idea of the unconditioned. For this member always still allows of a regress to further parts contained in it. + +Thirdly, if we suppose that nothing happens in the world save in accordance with the laws of nature, the causality of the cause will always itself be something that happens, making necessary a regress to a still higher cause, and thus a continuation of the series of conditions a parte priori without end. Nature, as working always through efficient causes, is thus too large for any of the concepts which we can employ in the synthesis of cosmical events. + +If, in certain cases, we admit the occurrence of self-caused events, that is, generation through freedom, then by an unavoidable law of nature the question 'why' still pursues us, constraining us, in accordance with the law of causality which governs experience, to pass beyond such events; and we thus find that such totality of connection is too small for our necessary empirical concept. + +Fourthly, if we admit an absolutely necessary being (whether it be the world itself, or something in the world, or the cause of the world), we set it in a time infinitely remote from any given point of time, because otherwise it would be dependent upon another and antecedent being. But such an existence is then too large for our empirical concept, and is unapproachable through any regress, however far this be carried. + +If, again, we hold that everything belonging to the world (whether as conditioned or as condition) is contingent, any and every given existence is too small for our concept. For we are constrained always still to look about for some other existence upon which it is dependent. + +We have said that in all these cases the cosmical idea is either too large or too small for the empirical regress, and therefore for any possible concept of the understanding. We have thus been maintaining that the fault lies with the idea, in being too large or too small for that to which it is directed, namely, possible experience. Why have we not expressed ourselves in the opposite manner, saying that in the former case the empirical concept is always too small for the idea, and in the latter too large, and that the blame therefore attaches to the empirical regress? The reason is this. Possible experience is that which can alone give reality to our concepts; in its absence a concept is a mere idea, without truth, that is, without relation to any object. The possible empirical concept is therefore the standard by which we must judge whether the idea is a mere idea and thought-entity, or whether it finds its object in the world. For we can say of anything that it is too large or too small relatively to something else, only if the former is required for the sake of the latter, and has to be adapted to it. + +Among the puzzles propounded in the ancient dialectical Schools was the question, whether, if a ball cannot pass through a hole, we should say that the ball is too large or the hole too small. In such a case it is a matter of indifference how we choose to express ourselves, for we do not know which exists for the sake of the other. In the case, however, of a man and his coat, we do not say that a man is too tall for his coat, but that the coat is too short for the man. + +We have thus been led to what is at least a well-grounded suspicion that the cosmological ideas, and with them all the mutually conflicting pseudo-rational assertions, may perhaps rest on an empty and merely fictitious concept of the manner in which the object of these ideas is given to us; and this suspicion may set us on the right path for laying bare the illusion which has so long led us astray. +§ 6 +TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM AS THE KEY TO THE SOLUTION OF THE COSMOLOGICAL DIALECTIC + +We have sufficiently proved in the Transcendental Aesthetic that everything intuited in space or time, and therefore all objects of any experience possible to us, are nothing but appearances, that is, mere representations, which, in the manner in which they are represented, as extended beings, or as series of alterations, have no independent existence outside our thoughts. This doctrine I entitle transcendental idealism. [I have also, elsewhere, sometimes entitled it formal idealism, to distinguish it from material idealism, that is, from the usual type of idealism which doubts or denies the existence of outer things themselves.] The realist, in the transcendental meaning of this term, treats these modifications of our sensibility as self-subsistent things, that is, treats mere representations as things in themselves. + +It would be unjust to ascribe to us that long-decried empirical idealism, which, while it admits the genuine reality of space, denies the existence of the extended beings in it, or at least considers their existence doubtful, and so does not in this regard allow of any properly demonstrable distinction between truth and dreams. As to the appearances of inner sense in time, empirical idealism finds no difficulty in regarding them as real things; indeed it even asserts that this inner experience is the sufficient as well as the only proof of the actual existence of its object (in itself, with all this time-determination). + +Our transcendental idealism, on the contrary, admits the reality of the objects of outer intuition, as intuited in space, and of all changes in time, as represented by inner sense. For since space is a form of that intuition which we entitle outer, and since without objects in space there would be no empirical representation whatsoever, we can and must regard the extended beings in it as real; and the same is true of time. But this space and this time, and with them all appearances, are not in themselves things; they are nothing but representations, and cannot exist outside our mind. Even the inner and sensible intuition of our mind (as object of consciousness) which is represented as being determined by the succession of different states in time, is not the self proper, as it exists in itself — that is, is not the transcendental subject — but only an appearance that has been given to the sensibility of this, to us unknown, being. + +This inner appearance cannot be admitted to exist in any such manner in and by itself; for it is conditioned by time, and time cannot be a determination of a thing in itself. The empirical truth of appearances in space and time is, however, sufficiently secured; it is adequately distinguished from dreams, if both dreams and genuine appearances cohere truly and completely in one experience, in accordance with empirical laws. + +The objects of experience, then, are never given in themselves, but only in experience, and have no existence outside it. That there may be inhabitants in the moon, although no one has ever perceived them, must certainly be admitted. This, however, only means that in the possible advance of experience we may encounter them. For everything is real which stands in connection with a perception in accordance with the laws of empirical advance. They are therefore real if they stand in an empirical connection with my actual consciousness, although they are not for that reason real in themselves, that is, outside this advance of experience. + +Nothing is really given us save perception and the empirical advance from this to other possible perceptions. For the appearances, as mere representations, are in themselves real only in perception, which perception is in fact nothing but the reality of an empirical representation, that is, appearance. To call an appearance a real thing prior to our perceiving it, either means that in the advance of experience we must meet with such a perception, or it means nothing at all. For if we were speaking of a thing in itself, we could indeed say that it exists in itself apart from relation to our senses and possible experience. But we are here speaking only of an appearance in space and time, which are not determinations of things in themselves but only of our sensibility. Accordingly, that which is in space and time is an appearance; it is not anything in itself but consists merely of representations, which, if not given in us -that is to say, in perception — are nowhere to be met with. + +The faculty of sensible intuition is strictly only a receptivity, a capacity of being affected in a certain manner with representations, the relation of which to one another is a pure intuition of space and of time (mere forms of our sensibility), and which, in so far as they are connected in this manner in space and time, and are determinable according to laws of the unity of experience, are entitled objects. The non-sensible cause of these representations is completely unknown to us, and cannot therefore be intuited by us as object. For such an object would have to be represented as neither in space nor in time (these being merely conditions of sensible representation), and apart from such conditions we cannot think any intuition. We may, however, entitle the purely intelligible cause of appearances in general the transcendental object, but merely in order to have something corresponding to sensibility viewed as a receptivity. + +To this transcendental object we can ascribe the whole extent and connection of our possible perceptions, and can say that it is given in itself prior to all experience. But the appearances, while conforming to it, are not given in themselves, but only in this experience, being mere representations, which as perceptions can mark out a real object only in so far as the perception connects with all others according to the rules of the unity of experience. Thus we can say that the real things of past time are given in the transcendental object of experience; but they are objects for me and real in past time only in so far as I represent to myself (either by the light of history or by the guiding-clues of causes and effects) that a regressive series of possible perceptions in accordance with empirical laws, in a word, that the course of the world, conducts us to a past time-series as condition of the present time — a series which, however, can be represented as actual not in itself but only in the connection of a possible experience. Accordingly, all events which have taken place in the immense periods that have preceded my own existence mean really nothing but the possibility of extending the chain of experience from the present perception back to the conditions which determine this perception in respect of time. + +If, therefore, I represent to myself all existing objects of the senses in all time and in all places, I do not set them in space and time [as being there] prior to experience. This representation is nothing but the thought of a possible experience in its absolute completeness. Since the objects are nothing but mere representations, only in such a possible experience are they given. To say that they exist prior to all my experience is only to assert that they are to be met with if, starting from perception, I advance to that part of experience to which they belong. The cause of the empirical conditions of this advance (that which determines what members I shall meet with, or how far I can meet with any such in my regress) is transcendental, and is therefore necessarily unknown to me. We are not, however, concerned with this transcendental cause, but only with the rule of the advance in the experience in which objects, that is to say, appearances, are given to me. Moreover, in outcome it is a matter of indifference whether I say that in the empirical advance in space I can meet with stars a hundred times farther removed than the outermost now perceptible to me, or whether I say that they are perhaps to be met with in cosmical space even though no human being has ever perceived or ever will perceive them. For even supposing they were given as things in themselves, without relation to possible experience, it still remains true that they are nothing to me, and therefore are not objects, save in so far as they are contained in the series of the empirical regress. Only in another sort of relation, when these appearances would be used for the cosmological idea of an absolute whole, and when, therefore, we are dealing with a question which oversteps the limits of possible experience, does distinction of the mode in which we view the reality of those objects of the senses become of importance, as serving to guard us against a deceptive error which is bound to arise if we misinterpret our empirical concepts. +§ 7 +CRITICAL SOLUTION OF THE COSMOLOGICAL CONFLICT OF REASON WITH ITSELF + +The whole antinomy of pure reason rests upon the dialectical argument: If the conditioned is given, the entire series of all its conditions is likewise given; objects of the senses are given as conditioned; therefore, etc. Through this syllogism, the major premise of which appears so natural and evident, as many cosmological ideas are introduced as there are differences in the conditions (in the synthesis of appearances) that constitute a series. The ideas postulate absolute totality of these series; and thereby they set reason in unavoidable conflict with itself. We shall be in a better position to detect what is deceptive in this pseudo-rational argument, if we first correct and define some of the concepts employed in it. + +In the first place, it is evident beyond all possibility of doubt, that if the conditioned is given, a regress in the series of all its conditions is set us as a task. For it is involved in the very concept of the conditioned that something is referred to a condition, and if this condition is again itself conditioned, to a more remote condition, and so through all the members of the series. The above proposition is thus analytic, and has nothing to fear from a transcendental criticism. It is a logical postulate of reason, that through the understanding we follow up and extend as far as possible that connection of a concept with its conditions which directly results from the concept itself. + +Further, if the conditioned as well as its condition are things in themselves, then upon the former being given, the regress to the latter is not only set as a task, but therewith already really given. And since this holds of all members of the series, the complete series of the conditions, and therefore the unconditioned, is given therewith, or rather is presupposed in view of the fact that the conditioned, which is only possible through the complete series, is given. The synthesis of the conditioned with its condition is here a synthesis of the mere understanding, which represents things as they are, without considering whether and how we can obtain knowledge of them. If, however, what we are dealing with are appearances — as mere representations appearances cannot be given save in so far as I attain knowledge of them, or rather attain them in themselves, for they are nothing but empirical modes of knowledge — I cannot say, in the same sense of the terms, that if the conditioned is given, all its conditions (as appearances) are likewise given, and therefore cannot in any way infer the absolute totality of the series of its conditions. The appearances are in their apprehension themselves nothing but an empirical synthesis in space and time, and are given only in this synthesis. It does not, therefore, follow, that if the conditioned, in the [field of] appearance, is given, the synthesis which constitutes its empirical condition is given therewith and is presupposed. This synthesis first occurs in the regress, and never exists without it. What we can say is that a regress to the conditions, that is, a continued empirical synthesis, on the side of the conditions, is enjoined or set as a task, and that in this regress there can be no lack of given conditions. + +These considerations make it clear that the major premise of the cosmological inference takes the conditioned in the transcendental sense of a pure category, while the minor premise takes it in the empirical sense of a concept of the understanding applied to mere appearances. The argument thus commits that dialectical fallacy which is entitled sophisma figurae dictionis. This fallacy is not, however, an artificial one; a quite natural illusion of our common reason leads us, when anything is given as conditioned, thus to assume in the major premise, as it were without thought or question, its conditions and their series. This assumption is indeed simply the logical requirement that we should have adequate premises for any given conclusion. Also, there is no reference to a time-order in the connection of the conditioned with its condition; they are presupposed as given together with it. Further, it is no less natural, in the minor premise, to regard appearances both as things in themselves and as objects given to the pure understanding, than to proceed as we have done in the major, in which we have [similarly] abstracted from all those conditions of intuition under which alone objects can be given. Yet in so doing we have overlooked an important distinction between the concepts. The synthesis of the conditioned with its conditions (and the whole series of the latter) does not in the major premise carry with it any limitation through time or any concept of succession. The empirical synthesis, on the other hand, that is, the series of the conditions in appearance, as subsumed in the minor premise, is necessarily successive, the members of the series being given only as following upon one another in time; and I have therefore, in this case, no right to assume the absolute totality of the synthesis and of the series thereby represented. In the major premise all the members of the series are given in themselves, without any condition of time, but in this minor premise they are possible only through the successive regress, which is given only in the process in which it is actually carried out. + +When this error has thus been shown to be involved in the argument upon which both parties alike base their cosmological assertions, both might justly be dismissed, as being unable to offer any sufficient title in support of their claims. + +But the quarrel is not thereby ended — as if one or both of the parties had been proved to be wrong in the actual doctrines they assert, that is, in the conclusions of their arguments. For although they have failed to support their contentions by valid grounds of proof, nothing seems to be clearer than that since one of them asserts that the world has a beginning and the other that it has no beginning and is from eternity, one of the two must be in the right. But even if this be so, none the less, since the arguments on both sides are equally clear, it is impossible to decide between them. The parties may be commanded to keep the peace before the tribunal of reason; but the controversy none the less continues. There can therefore be no way of settling it once for all and to the satisfaction of both sides, save by their becoming convinced that the very fact of their being able so admirably to refute one another is evidence that they are really quarrelling about nothing, and that a certain transcendental illusion has mocked them with a reality where none is to be found. This is the path which we shall now proceed to follow in the settlement of a dispute that defies all attempts to come to a decision. +* * * + +Zeno of Elea, a subtle dialectician, was severely reprimanded by Plato as a mischievous Sophist who, to show his skill, would set out to prove a proposition through convincing arguments and then immediately overthrow them by other arguments equally strong. Zeno maintained, for example, that God (probably conceived by him as simply the world) is neither finite nor infinite, neither in motion nor at rest, neither similar nor dissimilar to any other thing. To the critics of his procedure he appeared to have the absurd intention of denying both of two mutually contradictory propositions. But this accusation does not seem to me to be justified. The first of his propositions I shall consider presently more in detail. As regards the others, if by the word 'God' he meant the universe, he would certainly have to say that it is neither abidingly present in its place, that is, at rest, nor that it changes its place, that is, is in motion; because all places are in the universe, and the universe is not, therefore, itself in any place. Again, if the universe comprehends in itself everything that exists, it cannot be either similar or dissimilar to any other thing, because there is no other thing, nothing outside it, with which it could be compared. If two opposed judgments presuppose an inadmissible condition, then in spite of their opposition, which does not amount to a contradiction strictly so-called, both fall to the ground, inasmuch as the condition, under which alone either of them can be maintained, itself falls. + +If it be said that all bodies have either a good smell or a smell that is not good, a third case is possible, namely, that a body has no smell at all; and both the conflicting propositions may therefore be false. If, however, I say: all bodies are either good-smelling or not good-smelling (vel suaveolens vel non suaveolens), the two judgments are directly contradictory to one another, and the former only is false, its contradictory opposite, namely, that some bodies are not good-smelling, comprehending those bodies also which have no smell at all. + +Since, in the previous opposition (per disparata), smell, the contingent condition of the concept of the body, was not removed by the opposed judgment, but remained attached to it, the two judgments were not related as contradictory opposites. + +If, therefore, we say that the world is either infinite in extension or is not infinite (non est infinitus), and if the former proposition is false, its contradictory opposite, that the world is not infinite, must be true. And I should thus deny the existence of an infinite world, without affirming in its place a finite world. But if we had said that the world is either infinite or finite (non-infinite), both statements might be false. For in that case we should be regarding the world in itself as determined in its magnitude, and in the opposed judgment we do not merely remove the infinitude, and with it perhaps the entire separate existence of the world, but attach a determination to the world, regarded as a thing actually existing in itself. This assertion may, however, likewise be false; the world may not be given as a thing in itself, nor as being in its magnitude either infinite or finite. I beg permission to entitle this kind of opposition dialectical, and that of contradictories analytical. Thus of two dialectically opposed judgments both may be false; for the one is not a mere contradictory of the other, but says something more than is required for a simple contradiction. + +If we regard the two propositions, that the world is infinite in magnitude and that it is finite in magnitude, as contradictory opposites, we are assuming that the world, the complete series of appearances, is a thing in itself that remains even if I suspend the infinite or the finite regress in the series of its appearances. If, however, I reject this assumption, or rather this accompanying transcendental illusion, and deny that the world is a thing in itself, the contradictory opposition of the two assertions is converted into a merely dialectical opposition. Since the world does not exist in itself, independently of the regressive series of my representations, it exists in itself neither as an infinite whole nor as a finite whole. It exists only in the empirical regress of the series of appearances, and is not to be met with as something in itself. If, then, this series is always conditioned, and therefore can never be given as complete, the world is not an unconditioned whole, and does not exist as such a whole, either of infinite or of finite magnitude. + +What we have here said of the first cosmological idea, that is, of the absolute totality of magnitude in the [field of] appearance, applies also to all the others. The series of conditions is only to be met with in the regressive synthesis itself, not in the [field of] appearance viewed as a thing given in and by itself, prior to all regress. We must therefore say that the number of parts in a given appearance is in itself neither finite nor infinite. For an appearance is not something existing in itself, and its parts are first given in and through the regress of the decomposing synthesis, a regress which is never given in absolute completeness, either as finite or as infinite. This also holds of the series of subordinated causes, and of the series that proceeds from the conditioned to unconditioned necessary existence. These series can never be regarded as being in themselves in their totality either finite or infinite. Being series of subordinated representations, they exist only in the dynamical regress, and prior to this regress can have no existence in themselves as self-subsistent series of things. + +Thus the antinomy of pure reason in its cosmological ideas vanishes when it is shown that it is merely dialectical, and that it is a conflict due to an illusion which arises from our applying to appearances that exist only in our representations, and therefore, so far as they form a series, not otherwise than in a successive regress, that idea of absolute totality which holds only as a condition of things in themselves. From this antinomy we can, however, obtain, not indeed a dogmatic, but a critical and doctrinal advantage. It affords indirect proof of the transcendental ideality of appearances — a proof which ought to convince any who may not be satisfied by the direct proof given in the Transcendental Aesthetic. This proof would consist in the following dilemma. If the world is a whole existing in itself, it is either finite or infinite. But both alternatives are false (as shown in the proofs of the antithesis and thesis respectively). It is therefore also false that the world (the sum of all appearances) is a whole existing in itself. From this it then follows that appearances in general are nothing outside our representations — which is just what is meant by their transcendental ideality. + +This remark is of some importance. It enables us to see that the proofs given in the fourfold antinomy are not merely baseless deceptions. On the supposition that appearances, and the sensible world which comprehends them all, are things in themselves, these proofs are indeed well-grounded. The conflict which results from the propositions thus obtained shows, however, that there is a fallacy in this assumption, and so leads us to the discovery of the true constitution of things, as objects of the senses. While the transcendental dialectic does not by any means favour scepticism, it certainly does favour the sceptical method, which can point to such dialectic as an example of its great services. For when the arguments of reason are allowed to oppose one another in unrestricted freedom, something advantageous, and likely to aid in the correction of our judgments, will always accrue, though it may not be what we set out to find. \ No newline at end of file