Bowen continued on to draw an unflattering analogy between the validity of the Transcendentalists' "indistinct modes of reflection . . . loose and rambling speculations, mystical forms of expression, and . . . utterance of truths . . . half perceived" and the random luck of the gambler.
In their belief that truth was innate in all of creation and that knowledge of truth was intuitive, the Transcendentalists were heavily influenced by the thoughts and writings of the eighteenth century German philosopher Immanuel Kant. (Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was first published in 1781, his Critique of Practical Reason in 1788.) Their use of the term transcendental came from Kant, who wrote, "I call all knowledge transcendental which is concerned, not with objects, but with our mode of knowing objects so far as this is possible a priori [that is, independent of reason]."
