a Preface ample by which he became the author of a spirit of well groundedness in Germany that is still not extinguished) of the way in which the secure course of a science is to be taken, through the regular ascertainment of the principles,a the clear determination of concepts, the attempt at strictness in the proofs, and the prevention of audacious leaps in infer ences; for these reasons he had the skills for moving a science such as metaphysics into this condition, if only it had occurred to him to pre pare the field for it by a critique of the organ, namely pure reason itself: a lack that is to be charged not so much to him as to the dogmatic way of thinking prevalent in his age; and for this the philosophers of his as of all previous times have nothing for which to reproach themselves.